What I Have Lost
by r2r2
Summary: After a mutual split in college, Kurt and Blaine have settled into a comfortable, long-distance friendship, but things become complicated when untimely tragedy forces an overwhelmed Kurt to return to Ohio.
1. Prologue

A/N: This story involves one of my favorite guilty-pleasure tropes, but I hope I can still make it new and interesting. There are twelve parts total, apart from this short little prologue. I'm also posting it on kurt_blaine if you prefer that format. Thank you for reading!

Summary: _After a mutual split in college, Kurt and Blaine have settled into a comfortable friendship, but things become complicated when an untimely tragedy forces an overwhelmed Kurt to return to Ohio. In theory, one person's loss may be another person's gain, but Blaine discovers that it's rarely so simple in practice._

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><p><strong>What I Have Lost<strong>

_July 2020 - Westerville, Ohio_

Blaine Anderson hated grocery shopping.

He had nothing against it in principle, exactly - it was oddly satisfying to pick through the shelves and bins for the best prices like some sort of post-modern forager. He just hated shopping alone. There was something a little sad about the pile of single-serving frozen dinners and one-person macaroni packets piled haphazardly in the bottom of his cart.

Turning down the canned goods aisle, Blaine stopped in front of the endless rows of soup, momentarily distracted. There were too many choices. What was the difference between low sodium and reduced sodium? Was it better to get lower fat content or lower cholesterol? He just wanted some damn chicken noodle soup.

A teenage girl ducked in front of him to snatch up a can, muttering a brief 'excuse me' as she dropped her prize in her cart. Blaine turned unconsciously to watch her leave; a boy with red streaks in his hair hurried to catch up with her, giving her a little swat on the seat of her jeans that made her squeal.

There were a few other people on the aisle too: a middle-aged woman with upswept hair and a neatly-pressed formal suit steered her haul past the cereal boxes, three small children clinging to the bars of the cart; Blaine smiled at the youngest one, who waved at him shyly. An elderly gentleman passed by with another man, probably his son, the two of them talking in hushed tones.

Blaine shook his head a little, clearing his thoughts as he glanced down at his pocket-watch. It was almost six, and he still had plenty of work to do for tomorrow's filing overhaul at the office. He picked a can of chicken noodle soup at random, adding it to his stash, and headed for the dairy section.

His cell phone buzzed just as he was reaching for a half-gallon of milk, and he closed the freezer door, fumbling in his coat pocket. "Hello?"

"Blaine, you didn't call yesterday," his mother scolded. "If you can't talk, you need to remember to send me a text or voicemail to let me know. I missed a card party waiting for you. It's only polite."

"I completely forgot," he sighed, frustrated at himself. "I just haven't been myself this week, sorry."

"Are you sick, dear?" His mother's tone changed instantaneously. "I can bring you a jug of herbal tea."

"No, no, I'm fine. Don't worry."

"Maybe you should take some anyway. You do get hit hard by colds - you and your brother always had poor constitutions."

"Mom," Blaine cut in, a little irritated. "I'm _fine_, and I'm twenty-six years old. I think I can weather it by myself, thank you. And it's not a cold anyway."

Years of strict adherence to social niceties overrode Mrs. Anderson's maternal instincts, and she didn't press the matter. Blaine finished the rest of his shopping while she briefed him on the activities of the last two weeks instead.

"Your father sent a postcard from Venice," she remarked as Blaine scoured through the selection of brightly-packaged candy. "The meeting is going well so far, and he left a folder of instructions for you at the office. And . . . and he sends you his love."

There was just enough of a waver in her voice that Blaine knew that his father had done no such thing. "Thanks, I'll be sure to pick the folio up tomorrow morning." He plucked a bag from the shelf to give him something to occupy his hands with.

"Are you sure you're feeling well? You know . . . you know you can tell me anything, don't you, Blaine?"

It was more true now than it had been even two years ago. She had put in a genuine effort to make some progress, to try to understand him - she really had, and it was better between them now. Easier.

He took a steadying breath, staring at the package of jelly beans in his hand until the gaudy colors blurred together. "Kurt and his son are coming home today."

His mother inhaled sharply, her breath crackling over the line. "I see." A few beats of silence passed. "Are you going to see him?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "I haven't decided yet, and he might not be up to visitors right now. I don't want to push."

"Poor boy," his mother said, and she actually sounded sincere. "I hope he can find some peace here."

"He's not a boy anymore," Blaine said, smiling a little sadly. He did some quick mental math and added, "He'll be twenty-seven this year."

"Well, you're not a boy anymore either." He heard a shuffling noise on the other end of the line before her voice came back clear. "I know things were _uncomfortable_ back then, but I always thought Kurt seemed very nice. Very polite, very fond of you. If you and he managed to stay good friends through . . . everything, then I'm sure he would want to reconnect. He may need his friends more than ever."

"But maybe - maybe I don't know if _I_ can do it." He held his breath, waiting for her response, knowing how much he had just given away.

"I love you, _Bunso_," his mother said firmly.

Blaine felt unsettled, stripped open in the middle of a Safeway for everyone to see. His mother hadn't called him by that name for years, not since he was small, and he'd always loved the sound of it, how it rolled so fluidly off her tongue. His father hadn't liked it - he'd said it was gibberish.

"I . . . thanks," he said awkwardly. "I love you too, Mom."

"You'll know what to do," she told him. "Give him a call, see how the wind blows, and maybe you can find some measure of peace yourself."

She hung up before he could say a word, leaving him standing alone in the middle of the aisle with a dial-tone buzzing in his ear.

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><p>*Bunso: a Tagalog term of endearment for the youngest child.<p> 


	2. Dust On Our Heels

_A/N: Thank you to everyone for your favorites/alerts/reviews! Constructive criticism is always welcome. _

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><p>Chapter One: Dust on Our Heels<p>

_July 2020 - Lima, Ohio_

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><p>It was a quiet, sunny summer afternoon when Kurt Hummel returned to his father's house with dozens of boxes piled high in a rental car and a sleeping toddler propped on his hip.<p>

Carole greeted him at the door with a warm hug and a forehead kiss that made him feel a little childish, though he appreciated it all the same. Her arms were solid and generous and far too stifling.

"I'm sorry we're early," he said, pulling back so abruptly that the little boy in his grasp stirred fussily. "Jace had a rough night, so he slept all the way from Madison and I didn't need to make many stops. I can help put together the room if you haven't had time . . . "

"Burt and I set everything up last night. We haven't found a bed for Jace yet, but Burt pulled out your old crib. It's pretty big, so he should be okay for now."

"Don't worry about the bed. It's only temporary. I'll find a place soon." Kurt let his messenger bag drop to the floor as he shifted Jace onto his other hip.

Carole's smile faltered, but she covered it gracefully by ushering him into the kitchen for coffee.

Kurt toyed with his cup, watching silently as his stepmother shuffled the dishes around on the counter and filled the old coffeemaker with cheap grocery store brew - far from his usual free-trade organic beans, but he felt too tired to care about it today.

"It'll be done in a minute, Kurt," she said conversationally.

For a moment, it was quiet except for the low bubble of the percolator. Kurt looked around the familiar kitchen with its cheerful checkered tile and painted glass sunflowers hanging from the light fixture. It hadn't changed at all since he left home - the awful yellow curtains that he hated and Carole loved were still hanging over the window. Carole had changed, though. She was plumper around her hips, her dark hair streaked with gray and poorly covered with artificial brown coloring. Kurt made a mental note to recommend a better dye.

"I have orange juice for Jace if he's thirsty. Or does he like apple better?"

"Orange is fine," Kurt replied, reminded of the solid, silent weight in his arms, "but I don't think he'll wake up for a while longer. I won't let him sleep past four, though, or he'll never go to bed tonight."

"Does he stay on schedule for you?" Carole asked, abandoning the counter to sit across from him, letting out a slight noise of discomfort as she eased into her chair. "Finn was a terror at night - he never went to sleep when I wanted him to." She laughed softly. "I can't believe how big Jace has gotten."

"He sleeps a lot, and he sleeps hard." Kurt paused as Jace squirmed onto his side, slotting his head up underneath his father's chin. His thin blond hair floated up like dandelion fluff, tickling Kurt's neck, and he had to shift the boy onto his shoulder instead. "He's been restless these last two weeks, though, with all the packing and moving. He wasn't very happy with me during the flight - he cried all the way to Wisconsin." The corner of one lip turned up just a bit. "I think the woman sitting next to me was about ready to call security on us."

Carole laughed obligingly. "Well, he certainly seems peaceful enough now. You know that you can take as much time for yourself now as you want, don't you? You've got a regular posse of willing babysitters here." She looked wistfully at Jace.

"Do you want to hold him?" Finn and his wife didn't have children yet, so Jace was the only grandchild in the family.

Her face brightened. "Oh, please! I'd love to; I haven't held him since last Christmas, and pictures and videos just aren't the same."

The two of them stood as Kurt transferred Jace into Carole's capable hands. She cradled the little boy happily, smoothing kisses onto his chub-cheeked face as Kurt sat back down, his arms feeling oddly empty.

"He's so handsome," she remarked, examining his tiny fingers and button nose carefully, so as not to wake him. "He looks like a happy and healthy boy."

Kurt felt a ridiculous flutter of pride, but then her eyes lifted to study him across the table, and he could almost hear her doing a mental comparison. He knew he didn't look his best at the moment, and he steeled himself against an unwanted barrage of motherly concern. She hesitated, though, and he could see her evaluating his mood and stony face and deciding to let Burt deal with it instead.

"Is Dad at the shop or at the HQ?" he asked in a bid to distract both Carole and himself. He'd been okay the last few days, better than he'd thought he be with the big move, but it was always a tentative business.

"The HQ. General Assembly will be ongoing this year, so Burt's got his hands full with the commute every weekend, and he's been spending about three afternoons a week at the party offices. Amelia is keeping an eye on things for him in the capitol right now, but thankfully, it's been a fairly slow month; no big issues or bills to push through, just mostly municipal appeals and review."

Kurt latched onto the topic, and they discussed Burt's legislative agenda for the year until the man himself came home around four, the familiar stomp of his boots replaced by a lighter shuffle of dress shoes. His gait was still the same, though - steady and measured - and Kurt was out of his chair and in his father's arms before Burt had gotten halfway down the hall.

"Dad," he breathed, allowing himself a moment of weakness as he buried his face in his father's suit-coat, a hint of the scent of motor oil in the well-tailored fabric.

Burt's broad hands cupped the back of his head, curling briefly in his hair before he cleared his throat and moved back, studying Kurt's face intently. "Hey, kiddo. Good to see you."

Kurt closed his eyes, took a steadying breath, and then smiled. "You're going to see a lot of me for the next few weeks."

"And I'll be glad for it. It's been too quiet around here lately with just Carole and me. It'll be nice to have the little sport around. Where is he, anyway?"

"Carole has him. Come see." Kurt led the way into the kitchen, shaking his head as his dad shrugged off his coat and tossed it carelessly over the back of the couch.

Jace was sitting on the table - bracketed by Carole's protective arms - and playing quietly with a row of wooden blocks that Kurt had brought along. He looked up as his father came in, still bleary-eyed from so much sleep, and when he noticed Burt, his arms shot into the air in a plea to be picked up.

"Grampa!" he cried.

Burt hauled him up with a groan, returning the boy's eager hug and somewhat messy kiss. It always amazed Kurt how well Jace remembered people, and Burt had been a fairly constant presence the first year of his life. Grandpa was his favorite person in the world, apart from Kurt.

The evening passed very pleasantly. Carole warmed up a nice, heart-healthy stew in the crockpot, and even the notoriously picky Jace ate a good portion of the potatoes and peas. They sat in the living room afterwards, and Kurt chatted with Carole about his latest project while Burt and Jace 'wrestled' on the carpet and played with the Fisher Price train set that had once been Kurt's.

By seven, Kurt started to gather things up, knowing that Jace would need to be cleaned up after a long day of travel, but Carole immediately volunteered for bath duty, not yet ready to part with her grandson for the night. She whisked him upstairs while Kurt and Burt headed back into the kitchen to wash the dishes.

Kurt dried and his father rinsed, and it was just the two of them, standing together at the sink, the house completely still. About halfway through the plates, Burt stopped and turned to face his son, looking serious.

The overhead light suddenly seemed so much brighter, and Kurt felt a hot rush of shame over the way he'd let his hair air-dry over his forehead without a drop of hairspray, the way his nails were bitten down to the quick, the way the shoulder seams of his sweater sagged down a bit too far on his arms. He was certain that his dad could see all his imperfections under the harsh glare of that light, all the cracks and dents and colorless threads worn through. He was certain that he looked as brittle as he felt.

Burt glanced down, dropped a dish into the soapy water.

"Just say it, Dad."

"You look . . ." He stopped, dug his fingers into the sponge. "You look real tired, Kurt. And damn skinny."

Kurt bit the inside of his cheek. "What do you want from me?"

"I want to know you're dealing with this. Jesus, kid, I don't expect everything to be hunky-dory for you - I'd be more worried if it was - but I want you to be able to deal."

"I am."

"Doesn't look like it to me. You're doing a great job with Jace - far better than I did with you those first few years - but you have to take care of yourself too. Don't do what I did."

Kurt propped his elbows on the counter and bent over, flicking at a bubble on the tap. "It'll be two years this September."

"Kiddo . . ."

"I'm tired of feeling like this, and I hate myself for feeling tired of it." He closed his eyes. "When does it stop, Dad?"

"God, I wish I could tell you. Believe me, I do. It took me more than two years, that's for damn sure." He wiped his hand on a towel and touched Kurt's cheek with uncharacteristic tenderness. "But I had you, kid, and that makes all the difference."

"And I have Jace."

"And you have all of us," Burt corrected.

Kurt managed something like a smile, and Burt squeezed his shoulder. "Go get some sleep. I'll finish up here."

Carole had already finished the bath, coaxed Jace into his pajamas, and somehow managed to brush his teeth without evoking a screaming fit. She bid Kurt goodnight and left him to get his son settled down for the night. The crib sat in the corner, freshly cleaned with new sheets, but Jace was already crawling under the covers of the bed expectantly.

It was a bad habit, letting him sleep in the bed with him, but Kurt wasn't in the mood to deal with a tantrum tonight. Jace usually went down in his crib fairly obediently, but he'd been especially clingy this week. He was a perceptive boy, and he knew that something was changing, even if he didn't understand, so he was sticking close to Kurt. Truth be told, it comforted Kurt to have him close too.

He put Jace down, tucking the sheets snugly around him. He was wide awake and staring out the window, watching with curious eyes as the leaves shook in the wind, illuminated by the porch lights. There hadn't been many trees in their old neighborhood. There hadn't been many trees in New York, period.

"Daddy, look." Jace pointed.

"Pretty leaves, aren't they? What color are the leaves, Jace?"

"Green!" Jace said proudly. He'd started learning his colors, although Kurt wasn't sure if he actually understood the concept or was just a lucky guesser - he mixed up black, brown, and pink consistently.

"Good job. They're pretty green leaves."

"Pretty green leaves," he parroted. "Read hat story?"

"Sure. Let Daddy find it, okay?" Kurt hunted down the diaper bag, which Carole had thoughtfully set by the bed, and pulled out Jace's favorite book, a story about Blackbeard's search for his missing pirate hat. Finn had sent it for his second birthday, and it was one of the few books that Jace could sit all the way through.

He quickly washed up and changed into his own pajamas before bringing the book over and slipping under the sheets. Jace immediately curled up against his side, little pinky finger in his mouth, and listened quietly. It took three readings before both he and his father fell asleep, the book still propped open on Kurt's chest.

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><p>"Good morning, Blaine. Mr. Anderson left you a memo, and I have your work orders for you."<p>

Blaine smiled at the office attendant, accepting the manila envelope that she slid across the desk toward him. "Thank you, Camilla." He took a moment to glance at her hands as he picked up his files; she painted her nails a different color for every day of the week. They were hot pink today.

"You have a message from Mr. Haunheiser too. His assistant will have the Swarvski account ready for your father when he returns."

"Thanks for letting me know. I'll send the information on."

Blaine toted the stack of paperwork into his cubicle. It was dingy and cramped but far better than his last one, which he'd had to share with one of Mr. Haunheiser's more annoying clerks. The measure of privacy had been a perk of his recent promotion, and he'd done his best to make his work space comfortable: a montage of pictures were tacked over the plain gray walls, and he'd placed a marigold planter behind his conference phone – although that didn't really brighten the room much, as Blaine was terrible with plants and the flowers had been dead for weeks.

After booting up his computer, he opened up the first folder of the day. The memo from his father was cold and perfunctory – not that he had expected anything else – and he made the few adjustments that needed to be made. When that was finished, he arranged for Nancy and Camilla to re-file the clientele packets while he reviewed the ledgers that had been returned from the accounting office. It was tedious work, and he frequently found his attention straying toward the open window across the hall.

The day was uneventful, and by lunchtime, Blaine sent the staff members who had finished their workload home. They rushed off eagerly with profuse thank-yous, and Blaine decided to take a late lunch himself.

There was no one in the break-room but the chief accountant, Charles, who was hunched over a plastic container of instant macaroni. Charles had been one of his father's first employees, and Blaine was pretty sure he'd never met anyone quite so depressing in all his life.

"Hi, Charles! How are you doing today?" he asked brightly, pasting a smile on his face as he sat down next to the portly, balding man.

Charles blinked at him with small, bleary eyes, his fork hovering in midair. "Hello, Blaine. My food is cold."

"Why don't you pop it in the microwave again? Sometimes those containers take a lot longer to heat up than the label says."

"The microwave is broken."

Blaine glanced over his shoulder at the black microwave. Not surprising – his father never replaced anything until it was long past its expiration date.

"It heated it a little bit before it died," Charles informed him, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses, "but not enough." He let out a heavy sigh. "It's never enough."

"Huh. You know what, why don't you take an early day, Charles? There isn't much left to do here, so I already sent a lot of people home. Go watch a game or go to dinner with your wife."

"My wife left me."

"Um." Blaine swallowed heavily. "Oh, okay. Sorry."

Charles looked down mournfully at his lukewarm mac and cheese, and Blaine scurried away on the pretense of needing to make a call.

Since his lunch was still sitting in the fridge in the break-room – and Blaine was too embarrassed to go back in – he stopped at a nearby coffee shop for a caffeine boost and an overpriced sandwich. The office was nearly deserted when he came back, so he ate alone in his cubicle, paging through _Vogue_ and listening to Camilla flirt with the UPS man.

He still had twenty minutes off the clock when he finished, so he booted up his laptop and browsed through Facebook on a whim. Very few of his friends updated anymore – and he hadn't posted on his own since college – but occasionally a piece of news would pop up on his feed. His eye was quickly caught by one status halfway down the page.

**Finn Hudson**_: Hangin out w my bro an nephew today!_

There was a picture attached. Blaine paused with his finger indecisively hovering over the touchpad. After an uncertain moment, he clicked.

The picture must have been taken by someone else – probably Finn's wife – because all three of them were in it. They were in the Lima public park, and Finn was closest to the camera, his face split wide with a grin. A little blond boy was clinging to his shoulders, and there in the background was Kurt, perched elegantly on a swing.

Blaine glanced over his shoulder uneasily before enlarging the photo, leaning close to his screen and squinting. The resolution wasn't very good, but he drank in the blurry image. He hadn't seen Kurt in a long time, though he'd talked to him often enough, if much less than usual in the past two years. Kurt's Facebook was left largely untouched, although he had recently started to post photos of Jace in his album again, but he never put up pictures of himself.

Blaine hadn't known what to expect. He knew _he_ certainly looked different than he had back then, but he couldn't tell if Kurt had changed – the camera was too far away to capture his face clearly. He was wearing some sort of checkered peacoat with a wide red belt, and his hair was ruffled along his forehead. Blaine grinned to himself when he noticed that Kurt still sat with one leg crossed over the other, even on a swing set.

He studied the image for a moment longer, as if hoping it might suddenly morph into HQ, before logging out and returning to his paperwork.

For the rest of the afternoon, his fingers itched to scroll back and bring up the picture, but somehow he kept himself on task. Nothing was more pathetic than stalking an ex's Facebook photos, even if said ex was still a good friend. It wasn't as simple as that. Nothing was ever simple with Kurt.

It was half-past six when Blaine finally dragged himself through the door of his apartment, flicking on the lights and letting his briefcase drop to the floor.

Food came first: chicken cutlets were quickly stuck in the oven and salad was tossed, and he brought a glass of wine into the living room to nurse while he watched the news. When everything was done, he ate dinner in the kitchenette; he didn't know why he still sat down for meals, since he generally didn't have any company except the mismatched, unused chairs clustered around the table. Force of habit, he supposed.

Still, it wasn't as lonely as it could have been. Blaine invited Hazel from 102 B to dinner twice a week - she was a sweet old lady, very grandmotherly, and she brought him cookies. Actually, Hazel was the reason that he'd found this apartment in the first place. Five years ago, his father's firm had drawn up her late husband's will, and she'd taken a shine to Blaine, who had been put in charge of her file. He had been looking to move out of his parents' house at the time, and she'd mentioned the vacancy at her complex. He signed the lease the very next week and he'd been there ever since, much to his father's displeasure.

In fact, his father was still trying to get him to move. Mr. Anderson had found a small house listed for a reasonable price just a few blocks away from the firm, and he wanted Blaine to take it.

"For God's sake," he'd told him, "at this rate, you're going to be thirty years old and living in a rundown apartment building filled with retirees and teenage punks. You're too old for this. You need to settle down."

_With a girl _might have been slyly implied a few years ago, but that had been the one stance on which Blaine had always refused to budge. He was gay, he would be gay forever, and even if he hadn't had an actual relationship in a thousand and a half years, he was still gay. So, the implication _with a girl _had been replaced by _so you can look respectable before you die alone._

Blaine wasn't sure if that was an improvement or not.

He didn't want the house, because then it would be permanent. That house would be another weight anchoring him to Westerville. And God knows he had too many weights already. He'd lived in the town where he was born for practically all of his life, watching as his friends and family gradually scattered across the country, across the globe. His own brother was off frolicking in Asia somewhere, touring the continent with his fiance; his college friends had packed up, moved on; and Kurt . . . .

Blaine cleaned up the remains of his meal and sat down in front of his upright piano, a gift from his mother after he had graduated. He rolled a few chords, loosening up his fingers.

He and Kurt had planned on getting out of Lima together. Kurt had even waited for him that year, taking general classes at OSU and helping manage his father's legislative activities, and Blaine had been so ready to get out, so eager to see the world. In the end, only Kurt had been able to shake the Ohio dust from his boots.

Blaine lifted his hands from the keys, letting them fall into his lap. He'd tried to leave once, and he'd gotten as far as Chicago before he came back. He always came back. There was something inescapable about this place, something that reeled you in and sucked you down into the mud and convinced you that you weren't strong enough to survive anywhere else.

And now it had dragged Kurt back too.

He flipped open his phone, scrolling through his contacts until he found the one labeled _Kurt Hummel-Mulryan_. Making an impulsive decision, he pressed the send button.

It went straight to voicemail, but Blaine didn't hang up. He waited for the tone, gathering his thoughts together. His mouth suddenly felt very dry.

"Um, hey Kurt. It's Blaine. I hope the move went well for you and Jace, and let me know if you need help unpacking or with storage . . . or anything. Yeah. Uh, I know you've only been home for a week, but I'd really like to see you. We could meet at the Lima Bean, for old times' sake. Not that - not that I'm implying anything! I totally understand if you're too busy or you don't want to. No expectations. I . . . man, I hate leaving voicemails. Sorry. Anyway, I'm going to shut up before I say more stupid things. Give me a call or text me and let me know one way or the other. And feel free to bring Jace too. I'd really love to meet my godson. Yeah, so . . . bye, Kurt."

Blaine snapped the phone shut, sighed, and dropped his forehead against the keyboard in a cacophony of dissonant notes.


	3. Sandbox

_A/N: Thank you to everyone for your favorites/alerts/reviews! Constructive criticism is always welcome. _

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><p><strong>Chapter Two: Sandbox<strong>

_August, 2020_

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><p>Kurt methodically wrapped up some leftover ziti bake in tin foil, glancing at his feet every so often to check that Jace was still absorbed with the empty Tupperware containers and wooden spoon that he'd found in a bottom drawer.<p>

It had been a nice lunch; Finn and Jocelyn had dropped by to join them, and even Burt had enjoyed the ziti, which Kurt counted as a victory. It was good to spend more time with Finn, and his wife was tolerable. Jocelyn was a very soft-spoken woman, a little mousy, with huge eyes and a sweet face, and Finn adored her, although Kurt found her placidity both unnatural and frankly boring. She was clearly intimidated by him too, so he tended to keep his distance.

"Druuuum druuuum druuuum," Jace sang, smacking two of the lids together noisily. "Drum, Daddy."

Kurt smiled at him tightly, the faint echoes of a headache already building up at the base of his skull. "Yes, I see your drum, sweetheart." He stole a glance at the clock as he slipped the ziti into the refrigerator. "It's your naptime now."

His son's round face scrunched up stubbornly. "No. No nap."

Kurt gritted his teeth, straightening the magnets on the fridge to give himself a moment to collect his bearings. Jace hadn't slept well last night, and he'd been adamantly refusing to rest all morning - he always overcompensated for his sleepiness by being as loud and hyperactive as he possibly could. But Kurt hadn't slept well either, and he wasn't in the mood for this.

Fortunately, his father chose that moment to duck into the kitchen. "Hey, kid, I need stop into the office real quick for some papers. You wanna come along and see the new HQ? Finn did a bunch of work on it, fixed it up real nice for me."

Kurt snatched at the distraction eagerly, wrestling Jace into his shoes and then bundling him into the car. Burt helped buckle him into the car seat, looking faintly amused.

"Is he giving you trouble today?"

Kurt just shook his head, climbing into the passenger seat. "I don't think he's adjusting as well as I was hoping he would. He won't sleep in his crib." He hesitated. "He keeps asking to go home."

Burt was quiet for a moment, his gaze trained on the rearview mirror. "It's a big adjustment, Kurt. Kids are good at bouncing back, just give him a little time. It's barely been two weeks."

Kurt twisted in his seat; Jace was looking out the window with heavy-lidded eyes, three fingers in his mouth. "Maybe I made a mistake, Dad."

Without a word, Burt took an abrupt turn into a residential neighborhood, pulling up against the curb and killing the engine. "Kurt, look at me." He waited until Kurt reluctantly turned his head. "I know a lot of stuff was happening to you up there - and I know you haven't told me the half of it - but I don't want you thinking that you failed. Coming back here doesn't mean you failed, okay? Bad things happen and we need help. It doesn't mean we couldn't handle it. You stuck it out up there for two years when things were at their worst."

"Sure."

"Kid . . . " Burt stopped, rubbed at his neck in a tired gesture, and then turned the key in the ignition, pulling smoothly back out into traffic.

Jace was asleep by the time they arrived at the Hummel party office. The little brick building housed a number of private suites, and Burt had leased this one as a campaign office during his very first election year.

Kurt slung the diaper bag over his shoulder and opened the door, but Burt was already easing Jace out of the car seat, slotting him gently up against his shoulder with the ease of many years of practice. They walked up to the office, which was mostly empty.

Propping Jace on his hip, Kurt slowly toured the space while Burt signed off on some new faxes that had come in from his assistant. The renovation was decent, although Kurt had to wince at the shamrock-green trim on the walls (probably Finn's doing) and the mud tracks on the carpet (definitely Burt's doing).

It was still strange for Kurt to see his father sitting behind a desk scattered with important papers. In many ways, it didn't fit Burt Hummel at all. No matter how many tuxedos he wore or how many dignitaries shook his hand, he'd always be a mechanic with oily palms and a stained jumpsuit. Still, people liked him well enough to keep him in office, and he seemed to feel useful here, even if his fellow legislators frustrated him with their intrigues and doublespeak.

After reading through the first stack of documents and muttering a few sporadic curses, Burt got up to turn on his small coffee machine. "We might be here for a while. You want some coffee?"

_Coffee. _Kurt blinked up at him, thrown off-kilter.

"Kurt? You okay? You've been looking kind of green today. Are you getting one of those migraines?"

Kurt shook his head. "I'm fine."

His dad gave him an unimpressed look and went back to his work. Papers shuffled and crinkled together, the pen scratching faintly in the silent room.

"Blaine called. He wants to meet me for coffee."

Burt's eyebrows rose, but he said nothing.

"He'd like to meet Jace too," Kurt added, kneading at the hem of his sweater with his free hand. "We talked about meeting up, when I first told him about the move, but - I don't know."

"Well," Burt said slowly, "it's not like you haven't talked in twenty years. I thought you and he were calling each other back and forth."

"We were, we are. I just . . . it's a lot different face-to-face. And we didn't talk as much as we used to after the funeral." Kurt's fingers tightened on the fabric, stretching it until the fibers began to snag. He thought of many months of silence, of pleading voicemails, of terse emails and protestations that _he was fine_, _everything was fine_.

"You gonna go see him?""Should I?""Can't answer for you. If you want to see him, then go. If you don't, don't.""Of course I want to see him." He went back to worrying the threads. "I shouldn't have cut him out the way I did."

"If there was ever a good excuse for that, you had one," his dad reminded him. "He probably won't hold it against you."

Kurt made an agitated noise. "Oh, I _know _he won't. He always lets people walk all over him and then shines their shoes for them when they're done. He's always done that, and he'll do it for me too." He saw Burt's mouth twist down with concern. "What?" he demanded bitterly. "It's true."

Burt grunted as he hauled himself out of his chair and headed to the buzzing coffeemaker.

"I want to see him," Kurt admitted after a moment, sitting down in front of the desk. "I want to know he's happy - I want him to meet Jace." He rubbed his face against the curve of his shoulder and sighed. "I'm nervous."

"How come?" "What if he's changed? What if he thinks _I've _changed?""You have. People do."Kurt sat silently, watching his father stir a packet of low-cal, Carole-approved sugar into his coffee. His father's hands were starting to get unsteady, he noticed, and that old uneasy feeling began to coil low in his stomach.

"What do I do if he asks me about Emmett?"

His dad froze mid-stir. "Well, it might not come up at all."

"You don't know either, do you?" He smiled a bit and added, "I thought you had all the answers."

Burt chuckled. "Now you've got me figured out." Sitting back down at the desk, he shuffled a few papers around. "You've gotta decide for yourself, kiddo. I can't help you out here."

"I know." Kurt settled Jace into the crook of his arm and let his eyes drift shut, his phone feeling much heavier where it sat in his pocket.

* * *

><p>It was barely half past one when Blaine pulled into the Lima Bean parking lot, his hands sweating on the steering wheel.<p>

It had been a long time since he'd been inside the Lima Bean - he'd had no reason to visit once he moved back to Westerville. And actually, the Lima Bean Cafe wasn't the Lima Bean anymore. It had been bought out five years ago by a ex-hairdresser, who had expanded the shop into a bakery and given it a distinctly uninspired name. The Coffee Cup's quality hadn't slipped so far as to put it out of business, and the natives of Lima continued to call it the Lima Bean anyway.

Blaine slipped into the back of the short queue. The shop wasn't too crowded at this hour, serving mainly middle-aged workers on their lunch breaks and a smattering of students. It was quiet but busy enough to give the illusion of anonymity.

The gum-chewing girl at the counter glanced up at him from underneath her bangs. "What can I get you?"

"A medium drip and a grande n- um, just that." He glanced up at the menu board to avoid the barista's eyes, flustered. "Yeah, and two chocolate biscotti, please."

His order was done within ten minutes, leaving him with fifteen more until Kurt came. He ate his biscotti too quickly, needing some kind of distraction, and burned his tongue on the coffee.

"Hello, Blaine," said a soft voice from behind him.

Blaine twisted around, and there was Kurt.

Without stopping to over-think it, Blaine bolted up from his chair and grabbed him in a hug. His legs nearly wobbled with relief when Kurt squeezed him back tightly, turning his cheek against Blaine's shoulder, his hair brushing against Blaine's ear.

"Hi, Kurt," he whispered.

He heard Kurt chuckle a little, muffled against his shirt, and then they pulled apart. They looked each other over for a moment, and Blaine couldn't seem to stop grinning like a fool.

"Is that an Eirnaldi polo?"

Blaine tugged self-consciously at his collar. "Yeah. My brother sent it. He's traveling in Europe."

"Well, the color suits you," Kurt said warmly. "You look great."

"Thanks - you too." And it was true. Kurt looked fresh and handsome, his hair swept up in an artful pouf, his eyes just as blue and clear as they'd always been. And god, was it good to see him again, to feel how solidly he fit into his arms, like nothing at all had changed. He wanted to hug him again, just to be sure.

"This is Jace, Blaine."

Taken aback, Blaine glanced down at the little boy who was partially concealed behind Kurt, one pudgy hand gripping a fistful of his father's plaid trenchcoat.

"Jace, say hi to your Uncle Blaine," Kurt prompted.

The boy warily tucked himself further behind Kurt's legs. Blaine smiled at him, sitting back down to put himself closer to Jace's level. "Hi!" he said brightly, taking care to keep his voice as non-threatening as possible. "It's nice to see you, sweetie."

Jace looked at him, intrigued, and then at his father, who smoothed his cap of yellow curls gently. The gesture seemed to bolster his confidence, and he inched closer to Blaine, less afraid and more curious.

Blaine studied him just as curiously, searching for signs of Kurt in his face - which was ridiculous, as he wasn't biologically Kurt's. Still, he thought there was something very like Kurt in the way Jace tipped his chin, his little button nose lifted imperiously, and in the way his ears ended in tiny points where they stuck out from his head.

"He's always shy with new people," Kurt said apologetically, "but he'll warm up to you soon enough." Jace mumbled something, pulling on Kurt's coat. "Are you hungry? Sit down, and I'll get you something."

He expertly maneuvered his son into one of the chairs, producing a baggie of grapes from his coat pocket, dicing them carefully and quickly with a plastic knife, and setting them out on a napkin. Jace immediately snatched up a fistful and mashed them in his mouth, grinning at Blaine from behind his fingers.

"Chew, please," Kurt reminded him. "Take baby bites, Jace."

Blaine watched them for a moment, fascinated. "Do you want something to drink, Kurt?"

"No, I'm trying not to indulge in too much caffeine right now." He examined Blaine's mostly-empty cup. "Still drinking regular drip?"

"Old habits die hard."

There was a brief silence.

"Well, tell me how you've been," Kurt instructed, taking the other chair and settling into it gracefully. "What exciting things have been happening in the life of Blaine Anderson?"

For some reason, Blaine couldn't think of a single thing to tell him. "I, uh, I've been thinking of getting a dog."

"Really?"

_No._ "Yeah. Maybe, uh, maybe some kind of terrier. Or a golden retriever."

"That would be nice. I was always more of a cat person."

"I know. Maybe I'll get a dog and you can get a cat. We could go to the shelter together. I wonder if they ever have buy-one-get-one-free deals." Blaine bit his lip, embarrassed by the torrential downpour of stupid words that always seemed to spill from his mouth when he was nervous.

Kurt smiled, though. "I don't know what Carole would say about that. She's allergic."

"Oh, right."

They tittered nervously at each other.

"Yummy," Jace announced. He threw his sticky hands up into Kurt's face, making some sort of clumsy gesture. "Done? Done?"

Kurt tried to coax him into eating a few more grape slices, but Jace's attention was clearly straying; he kept trying to escape his father's grip, wanting to explore the room. His whining grew more insistent, and Kurt looked a little embarrassed as the other patrons began to notice.

Blaine could see him gearing up to leave, and something like desperation seized him - he didn't want to say goodbye yet. "Kurt, why don't we take Jace to the park? He likes it, doesn't he? We could walk around, burn off some energy."

Kurt seemed relieved, scooping Jace up and following Blaine out to the parking lot. The public park was just off the main road, so they decided to walk, though Kurt stopped long enough to grab a polished leather messenger bag out of his car.

"Diaper bag," he said, hefting it over his shoulder and bending down to hold Jace's hand. "You always have to be prepared."

Blaine smiled to himself. Only Kurt would tote around diapers and sippy cups so tastefully.

The park was actually fairly busy this afternoon - it looked like a daycare center or two had decided to take advantage of the weather. A group of older girls and boys were roughhousing on the swings and the slide, but Jace steered them toward the turtle-shaped sandbox, sitting deserted under the shade of an oak.

Kurt's nose wrinkled distastefully at the sight of the mulch-dotted, moist sand, but Jace plopped into it bottom-first. Impulsively, Blaine tugged off his loafers and sank his toes into the cool, wet sand, wiggling them and sending a tiny plume into the air. Jace squealed, trying to bury his own shoe-clad feet.

With an indulgent sigh, Kurt untied Jace's shoes for him, setting them safely in the grass. "I can see you're going to be a bad influence, Blaine. You're lucky I brought wipes along."

Blaine just laughed, jumping a little when one of Kurt's heavy boots thudded down on the ledge next to him. Kurt elegantly peeled off his socks, folding them and tucking them securely into his bag before perching gingerly next to Blaine. He rolled up his jeans and eased his pale feet into the box; Jace immediately abandoned his own half-buried feet to pile sand industriously on top of his father's.

"What have you been doing lately, job-wise?" Kurt asked.

Blaine wriggled his toes again, the grains sticking against the webbing. "I'm still at Anderson & Haunheiser, but I was promoted since the last time I talked to you."

"Oh? What do you do now?"

"A little bit of everything," he chuckled. "I'm sort of a glorified secretary."

To Blaine's great surprise, Kurt looked angry. "You've been working for your dad for _seven_ _years_. You should be a partner by now."

"It's okay. I don't mind the job, and it pays well. Plus, I run things when he and Haunheiser are out of town." He cleared his throat, not sure what else to say.

Kurt twisted his hands together, lifting his face toward the sunlight, and Blaine was suddenly struck by how much older Kurt looked out here in the open air. The sunshine caught the faint lines around his mouth, the carefully-concealed crescents ringing his eyes. Even the tilt of his head seemed less confident, and his trench belt was cinched in far too much for a body that was so tall and broad-shouldered.

"I wish this wasn't so awkward," Blaine blurted before he could talk himself out of it. "I don't want us to be awkward, Kurt."

Kurt's smile was a little pained. "I know. I think we started out all wrong." He took a deep breath. "How are you, Blaine? Really, truly, how are you?"

_I'm worried about you_, he wanted to say. "I'm good, Kurt." _I'm lonely. _"You know how life is sometimes - you get to a certain place, and you don't exactly know where to go next, but . . . but it's good. I'm happy here." _I missed you so much._

"That's good."

"And - and are you okay? Really okay now?" Blaine nudged his shoulder a bit, tried to lighten the mood.

Kurt chewed at his lower lip. "Would it be unfair of me to say that I don't know yet?" He shook his head and sighed, "Pathetic, I know."

"No. No, it's not."

Jace patted another layer of sand over Kurt's feet, and Kurt bent forward to rest his chin on his knees, a gesture that was so familiar and yet very different. "I never wanted to leave New York," he said slowly. "It's my home." He cut his eyes over to Blaine. "I'm glad you're here."

"So am I." He wanted to take Kurt's hand, but he didn't know whether he had the right to, whether Kurt would want him to or not - so he settled for inching his foot across the sandbox, fitting it snugly against Kurt's.

"I see that you're still determined to grow a hair-forest on your feet," Kurt said dryly, poking him.

"Well, not all of us are blessed with perfectly smooth lady-toes."

That startled a real laugh out of Kurt, and Blaine felt rather proud of himself.

"It really is good to see you again, you know." Kurt stretched a bit, looked down at his dirty feet, and rolled his eyes. "Those wipes will never get all of this dirt off. You owe me for ruining my socks. Come eat dinner with us sometime this week to make it up to me?"

Blaine kicked an extra mound of sand onto Kurt's feet, just because he could. "Deal."


	4. Retracing Footsteps

_A/N: Thank you to everyone for your favorites/alerts/reviews, especially jcrissrid and amorawolfe! Constructive criticism is always welcome.  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Three: Retracing Footsteps<strong>

_August, 2020  
><em>

* * *

><p>After considerable effort and the unfortunate destruction of one glass baking dish, Blaine managed to produce something that loosely resembled cherry cobbler. Baking had never been his strong suit, but it seemed to be edible, and hopefully it wouldn't poison Kurt and his family.<p>

The cobbler was wrapped up carefully and riding in the passenger seat of the car as Blaine turned off the highway that led to downtown Lima. He and Kurt had deemed tonight the perfect time for a get-together dinner - Carole worked the morning shift, and Burt and Finn always closed the shop down early on Fridays. More available hands would make it less stressful for Kurt, so Blaine had agreed without question, although he privately felt a little uncomfortable with such a sudden reintroduction to the entire Hummel-Hudson clan.

Still, he'd been talking himself up all afternoon at the office. He'd dressed up a bit - but not too formally - and had even shaved again in the tiny, dingy office restrooms before he left Westerville. He left early too, just in case Kurt needed some extra help with the preparations; he'd become quite the sous chef during the course of his relationship with Kurt.

Blaine found the turnoff for the Hummel-Hudsons' house from memory, parking along the quiet street. The house looked much the same, although the scattered toys on the porch were definitely a new addition.

Finn was the one to answer the door, seeming remarkably unchanged, if a few inches taller and a bit heavier in his face. He looked less gangly too, as though he'd finally grown into his long limbs.

"Blaine, man! How're you doing?" He surprised Blaine by swooping down and giving him an enthusiastic one-armed bro hug, nearly squishing the cobbler into Blaine's chest.

"I'm good, thanks. Sorry for showing up so early. I thought Kurt might want some help."

Finn stepped out of the doorway so Blaine could come inside and then led him into the kitchen. "Kurt went to the store to pick up something. I can't remember what - something leafy, anyway. He and Mom left, like, two minutes ago."

"Oh, great." Blaine bounced on the tips of his toes, looking curiously around the room. "Is there anything I can help with?"

"I'm mixing up some salad stuff. You can wash the lettuce if you want. Kurt always gets mad at me for not cleaning it enough - I'll let him blame you instead." Finn grinned at him conspiratorially, and Blaine gladly headed to the sink, relieved to have something to occupy his hands with.

"It's good to see you again, Finn," Blaine said honestly as he set the lettuce head under the spray nozzle. He and Finn had once had a rocky start, but they'd eventually gotten comfortable with each other for Kurt's sake, and Blaine had come to appreciate Finn on his own merits too. Of course, that had been a long time ago. "How are you? Are you still working for Burt?"

"Yeah - I run the shop part-time now, since Burt's busy with his legislative stuff. I got all my accreditation done three summers ago, so it works out really nice now." Finn poured a baggie of baby carrots into a bowl, adding in chopped spinach leaves and cherry tomatoes.

"I heard you got married."

"Yup. Joss isn't here, 'cause she had to work late tonight. She told me to say 'hi' for her, though."

"Well, say 'hi' for me too, then." He started to shred the lettuce, making sure that all the dirt was circling down the drain. "Gosh, it feels like it's been eons since I visited this part of Lima. How long has it been since I last saw you guys?"

Finn munched contemplatively on a crouton. "Four years at least, since you weren't at Emmett's funeral."

Blaine's stomach dropped, and Finn immediately seemed to realize that he'd blundered all over a sore spot.

"Crap. Hey, that wasn't - I wasn't trying to say anything. It's cool that you didn't come."

Months of quietly-contained fears crept to the surface again, and Blaine was compelled to ask, "Was Kurt angry with me?"

Finn shrugged, looking very much as if he wanted to change the subject but couldn't quite figure out how. "I dunno, but don't feel bad. He was kind of a mess - I don't think he was even thinking about that."

"That . . . that doesn't necessarily make me feel better," Blaine said weakly.

"Ugh, I'm really bad at this stuff, sorry. Kurt says I trample all over everything, and I guess I do. What I meant to say is that it's good to see you again, and that stuff's all in the past anyway."

"Can I ask you a favor?" Blaine put down the lettuce and glanced at the doorway, weighted down by the unpleasant feeling that he was going behind Kurt's back, before fixing a determined look on the man next to him.

Finn nodded a little suspiciously.

"Will you tell me how it happened? I know it was an accident, but Kurt never told me exactly . . . ."

"Freak accident, man." Finn hesitated, shuffling his feet across the tile absently. "You know Emmett was an architect, right? He was checking up on some building site and he went right off the edge of a scaffold. No one knows exactly why - they think he might have slipped or something, 'cause there was drywall paint everywhere - but he hit the cement hard. His neck got busted."

Blaine wasn't able to suppress a shiver.

"It was pretty ugly. And the hospital didn't contact Kurt right away either, because they weren't legally married, you know? Emmett's parents had to tell him."

"He never told me any of that," Blaine murmured.

"Well, he's Kurt," Finn said, as if that explained everything. He went back to his salad. "We all liked Emmett. It was hard."

Blaine said nothing, because there was nothing to say. He'd spent four years hating Emmett Mulryan, just on principle, hating him and the way that Kurt spoke about him. And then he died and Kurt fell apart, and Blaine didn't dare admit to anyone how much he'd resented a man he'd never met.

He felt a sudden, pressing need to get away from the kitchen. "Finn, can I . . . I forgot the pie-server for the cobbler in my car. I'll be right back."

"Sure, man."

Blaine hurried out of the house, found the server, and walked around the block for some air, ashamed of his inability to keep his cool and relieved that Finn was as oblivious as he'd ever been. This was going to be a nice evening: he was going to eat whatever Kurt made (which was sure to be delicious), he was going to make pleasant conversation with everyone, and he was not going to think about . . . well, everything else.

It had been foolish of him to assume that Emmett wasn't going to come up eventually, but he'd been perfectly happy to dance around the subject. The strength of his reaction - after all this time - was depressing and more than a bit alarming.

It was so odd. After their break-up, Blaine had tolerated the shades of Kurt's various boyfriends - Kurt had even gone through one brief spell in his junior year of college where he'd had a string of lovers, and Blaine had been able to manage the occasional bout of jealousy quite well. He'd been so sure that he'd proved their friends wrong and shown everyone that he could sustain and be satisfied with a good, healthy friendship.

Emmett had always been painfully different, right from the start.

Blaine circled the block again, lingering by his car for a few more minutes under the guise of making a call. He hoped that Finn wasn't starting to wonder what was taking him so long, but he wasn't ready to go inside just yet.

Roughly six years ago, out of the blue, Kurt had told Blaine about a new client of his, and it hadn't taken long for him to ferret out the information that the man was bisexual and single and that Kurt was determined to have him. Blaine hadn't worried too much then; like all of Kurt's relationships, it would all be over in a few weeks, a month at most.

But Emmett hadn't gone away.

Blaine locked the car doors and started up the sidewalk, knowing that he couldn't stay out here. He could shut up all the memories for now, at least, and worry about them later tonight. That was all in the past, and it shouldn't have such a strong effect now.

But he'd wondered sometimes, no matter how much he tried not to, what might have happened if he'd fought for Kurt and demanded that Kurt fight for him too, instead of letting everything they'd had fade like it didn't matter at all.

And truthfully, maybe some fettered, cruel part of Blaine had been banking on the relationship souring like all of Kurt's previous ones had. But the years kept passing by, and then came _Hey, everyone! Em and I are meeting with an agent at the adoption center today - wish us luck! _and Blaine's carefully-constructed denial had shattered.

Another man might have gone out and gotten hammered or trawled the bars for a quick fuck or left a weepy voicemail on a friend's phone, but not Blaine. He'd erased the email, sent a congratulatory reply, cried a little, and then forced himself to focus on the pile of paperwork that his father had sent home with him. And he'd been doing the same thing ever since.

Blaine Anderson always went out with a whimper - never a bang.

* * *

><p>"Oh, it looks like he's already here," Carole remarked as Kurt maneuvered the minivan into the driveway. "Nice car."<p>

"Car!" Jace gurgled from the backseat.

"I'll grab the groceries," Kurt said, his heart beating just a little bit faster with anticipation. "Can you -?"

"I've got him," Carole cut in, smiling. "Go on inside, honey."

Kurt snatched up the grocery bags in one arm, pausing just long enough to check his hair in the rearview mirror before he headed for the house.

The living room was empty, but he could see that the lights were on in the kitchen. "Did you finish the salad, Finn?" he called from the hallway, depositing his coat carefully on the hook. "That lettuce better be sparkling clean."

When he rounded the corner, he saw Finn at the sink, but his eyes immediately sought out Blaine, who was sitting at the table and slicing radishes. He looked nice tonight, fitted out in a wine colored button-up and black dress pants - his hair was set in loosely-gelled curls, the way that Kurt had always preferred it.

"Blaine," Kurt said, setting the groceries quickly on the counter, "did Finn press you into service? You're a guest."

Finn made a noise of protestation that Kurt ignored.

"Nah." Blaine grinned up at him. "I wanted to help. I brought some cobbler for dessert too."

"You baked?"

Blaine grimaced, but his voice lacked any heat when he said, "Wow, thanks. You'll have to judge for yourself."

"I'll eat it if you don't want it. I like cherries." Finn shot a lustful glance at the cobbler.

"You like anything that's edible," Carole said, sweeping into the kitchen with Jace, who immediately pulled away from her hands to cling to Kurt's leg.

Blaine quickly stood up from his chair, and Kurt couldn't help but smile at the familiar gesture - no one ever could pry that horribly polite Anderson training out of him. "Hello, Mrs. Hummel-Hudson. Thank you for having me over."

"You can still call me Carole, you know." She enfolded him in a generous hug, smoothing his collar with motherly precision as she pulled away. "How are you, sweetheart?"

"I'm good, Carole." Blaine's smile was boyishly sweet and a little shy, and Kurt was reminded of how much Blaine had loved Carole - his own mother hadn't been half so affectionate in those days.

"I'm glad to hear it. Kurt, do you want me to put in the chicken first?"

Kurt paused, evaluating how much time he would need to finish the casserole bake. "Yes, go ahead and put it on the grill on low heat. The beans shouldn't take more than thirty minutes, and Dad will definitely be home by then."

Carole whisked out the plate of chicken breasts and headed to the back deck, Finn following closely behind with a bowl of marinating rub.

A little uncertain again without any buffers, Kurt busied himself with the green beans, trying to think of what to say - he could feel Blaine's eyes on him.

"What can I do to help?" Blaine asked. "I feel strange letting you do all the work."

"Do you cook a lot?" _Dishes for one or two? _he wanted to ask, but the question felt too odd to say aloud.

"Yeah. I lived on carryout for a few months, but eventually I either had to learn to cook or gain fifty pounds from too much Chinese food."

Kurt drained the beans and piled them into the bottom of a dish, adding in some cream of vegetable soup. "You could grab the plates and set the table if you want to. They're in the cabinet to the right of the microwave."

The small arm holding onto Kurt's shin suddenly disappeared, and he glanced down to see Jace trailing after Blaine, watching as he pulled a high stack of Carole's ceramic plates from the cabinet.

"Blue," he announced loudly, making Blaine, who hadn't noticed him standing by his knees, jump a little. "Mine, Daddy?"

"No, those are Grandma's plates, Jace," Kurt said patiently, scraping the can lids over the trash. "They're glass, and glass could hurt you. You have your own special plate."

Jace ignored his father, looking up at Blaine with beseeching eyes. "Mine?"

Kurt was ready to intervene, but then Blaine squatted down to Jace's level, affecting a look of intense interest. "Can I see your special plate?"

Momentarily distracted, Jace showed him the low cabinet where Kurt had stashed his plastic cups, utensils, and dishes. He pulled out his favorite plate, a bright red one emblazoned with some absurd cartoon character that Kurt could never remember the name of. A pile of sippy-cup lids clattered down to the floor along with it.

"Plate," he said proudly.

Blaine gasped dramatically, startling Kurt so badly he nearly dropped a can in the sink. "Is that your plate? I wish I had a cool plate like that! Can I have it?" He extended his hands, palms up.

Jace stared at him, his little mouth dropping open. "_Mine_!"

Blaine put on an absurd look of disappointment. "Oh. I guess I have use those plain old blue plates, then. You're lucky to have an awesome plate like that."

"Plate," Jace mumbled, clutching it close to his chest. Kurt felt a bubble of laughter threatening to break through, but he pursed his lips tightly and waited to see what his son would do next. Jace was a stubborn Hummel through and through, and Kurt could see that Blaine had run himself into a bit of a corner.

"Well, if it's your plate, that's okay. I'll just use one of the others. Let's put your plate on the table."

Kurt knew that Jace wouldn't understand, so he gently slipped in between them, taking a dish and setting it on the placemat, demonstrating the process. "Come here and put yours up too, sweetie. Where do you usually sit at the table? Here's where Daddy sits." He pointed at one of the chairs. "Where does Jace sit?"

Jace's face screwed up with concentration as he circled the table and reached up to pat his high chair.

"Good job," Kurt praised. "Let's put your plate up on your chair so it's ready for your dinner."

Jace surrendered the plate after shooting a few suspicious looks in Blaine's direction. Once he was satisfied that his plate wasn't going to be stolen, he focused his attention on the small toy-box that Kurt had placed in the kitchen, far away from the oven and sink.

"I didn't mean to make him mad at me," Blaine remarked sadly.

"Toddlers don't hold grudges. Besides, your strategy worked, didn't it? Well played, sir. Who knew all that experience mugging for show choir crowds would make you a hit with two year-olds?"

Blaine threw back his head and laughed. "I wasn't really sure if he could understand any of that," he admitted, sounding sheepish. "He probably thinks I'm some weird guy who likes plates way too much."

"He might not have gotten the entire gist of it, but he certainly understood that you wanted his plate." Kurt shook his head a bit. "He has a possessive streak like me, so sometimes all he needs is a reminder that something's his, and then he's satisfied with what he has. You did just fine - you'll make a good father someday."

Blaine's smile flickered, and Kurt felt a moment's uneasiness, unsure of what he'd said amiss.

"It's still a little strange for me to think that you have a son," Blaine said softly, scratching at his ear in the way he always did when he was nervous about something. "It just seems . . . When did we grow up, Kurt?"

"Are you calling me old?" Kurt tried to inject amusement into his voice, but the idea stung him more than he wanted to admit.

"Of course not," Blaine said earnestly. "You haven't reached The Big 30 yet."

"Hmm. I feel old sometimes."

"Yeah, me too."

They were quiet for a minute until a stream of chatter from Jace's direction cut into the tension. Jace scooted toward them, tugging his oversized teddy bear, Corduroy, behind him and jabbering.

Blaine stared at him blankly. "I . . . I didn't get any of that."

Kurt listened closely for a moment and then glanced at the fruit basket on the counter. "He and Corduroy want a banana."

"Can I give it to him? You know, as a peace offering?"

"Just give him a third to start with, and slice it thinly in a bowl, please. Otherwise he won't eat dinner."

Kurt sat with Jace and listened to him tell an enthusiastic and essentially unintelligible story about Corduroy and something to do with the Wonder Pets - it was always fun to guess what he was trying to say. He'd glance up at Blaine every so often, amused by Blaine's expression of serious concentration as he chopped up the fruit.

When Blaine finally joined them at the table, Kurt caught Jace's attention. "Sweetie, look what Blaine made you! Wasn't that nice?"

"Blanamas." Jace reached out for the bowl with a big smile, appearing not to notice as Blaine sat down next to them.

"Can you say 'thank you' to Blaine?"

Jace chewed on one of the slices and studied Blaine intently, his eyebrows furrowed.

Kurt sighed, "We're still working on that."

Jace twisted around on his lap, and carefully removed one of the slices, holding it up to Kurt's mouth. "Daddy blanama," he said insistently. Kurt took a quick bite out of it, pretending to nip at Jace's fingertips, which always sent him into a fit of giggles.

"Jace blanama," he said, eating one himself. "Now Daddy." He gave one to Kurt, and when he reached for another, he surprised both adults by offering it to Blaine.

Blaine looked uncertain as he accepted the mushy banana from Jace's sticky fingers.

"You don't have to eat -" Kurt started to say, but Blaine quickly popped it in his mouth.

"Yum! Thank you."

Jace bounced a little on Kurt's leg and smiled at Blaine.

"I think he's forgiven you."

Blaine glanced down at the table, rubbing at his ear again. "I wish it was so easy with adults."

His automatic impulse was to bristle at the implication, but Kurt wasn't sure exactly what Blaine was referring to. He looked at Blaine for a moment, wondering why that bothered him so much.

It struck him then that he'd literally missed years of his friend's life, and Blaine had missed years of his. It was so easy, in some ways, to fall back into those comfortable patterns, but - but they didn't really know each other anymore, did they? A lot had happened, a lot had changed, and how much could a shared history dictate how well you knew a person?

_You __**have**__ changed. People do. _Kurt knew he had, but why was it so upsetting to think that Blaine had too?

The dinner went very well, all things considered; the only truly awkward moment was when Carole gently hinted for news about Blaine's love life - he'd told them all about his job and his family with little prompting, but the first question about a boyfriend had left him at a loss for words, clearly unnerved. Kurt had tried to come in to cover it up, but he'd noticed his father looking curiously in between them, and that made _him_ unsettled.

By dessert, Jace was starting to get sleepy, and when he was sleepy, he was cranky. Not even Burt could distract him from his whining, so Kurt gave up and finally decided to put him to bed.

"I'd better be going anyway," Blaine said, scooting back from his chair. "It was a lovely meal, thank you."

"That wasn't a hint, Blaine - you don't have to leave."

Blaine shook his head, though, stacking his empty plate carefully onto the pile in the middle of the table. "No, I should go. It's a long drive at night."

"Come again, Blaine," Carole offered just as Burt said, "Drive safe."

Kurt handed Jace over to Finn and rose from his seat. "I'll walk you out."

The two of them stepped into the brisk twilight air; Blaine blew out a long breath and stuck his hands in his coat pockets, looking out over the lawn.

"It was good to see your parents and Finn again," he said. "They were really nice."

"Why wouldn't they be?"

"Well, it's been years."

"Yes, but . . . " Kurt paused. "You were always welcome here, Blaine, so you still are. Dad and Carole are like that."

Blaine looked at him almost desperately, something very sad and tight around the lines of his mouth. He opened his mouth as if to say something and then shut it again, rocking back on his heels. Visibly bolstering himself back up, he mumbled, "I should probably go."

"Goodnight, Blaine. I'll . . . I'll talk to you later?"

Blaine's face split into a toothy grin. "Please do. Goodnight, Kurt."

Kurt lingered in the doorway until Blaine's Subaru disappeared around the corner, feeling strangely nostalgic. He'd spent many nights here in high school, watching Blaine leave - though Blaine had driven his mother's old green station wagon in those days.

Back inside, Finn met him in the hall.

"I put Jace in bed," he said. "Man, he really likes that pirate book, huh?"

"He does. Did you put up the safety gate?"

"Yup." He clapped Kurt on the shoulder and went to get his own coat and keys. "See you later, bro. Thanks for dinner."

Jace was already fast asleep when Kurt came upstairs, so he spent an extra half-hour on his moisturizing routine, enjoying the rare leisure of having some time to himself. He felt unusually mellow tonight, and he wanted to hang onto the sensation for as long as he could.

He knew it would be gone again too soon as it was.


	5. Fathers and Sons

_A/N: Thank you to everyone for your favorites/alerts/reviews! Constructive criticism is always welcome. _

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><p><strong>Chapter Four: Fathers and Sons<strong>

_September 2020_

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><p>Cursing whoever had invented Microsoft Spreadsheet, Blaine erased a column of numbers and opened a fresh document, resigned to starting over from the top.<p>

It was very quiet in the office today, and Camilla hadn't had any messages at the desk from his father this morning, which was a first. For some reason, that only made him uneasy. He didn't like not having some kind of firm direction for the day.

Kimberley, one of the new temps, ducked her head into his office, tapping lightly on the doorframe. "Hey, Blaine, I'm out on break, and I'm gonna grab a macchiato really quick. Do you want anything?"

"No, thanks." He smiled at her. "Are the numbers crunched?"

"Yeah, Charles finished about ten minutes ago. Did-?"

Blaine's desk phone beeped, flashing with an incoming call on Line 1; Kimberley waved in acknowledgment of Blaine's apologetic shrug and slipped from the room.

He pressed the speakerphone button. "Anderson and Haunheiser, this is Blaine Anderson."

"Blaine." His father's voice crackled over the line.

Blaine immediately straightened in his chair, his fingers plucking fruitlessly at his tie out of habit. "Dad. How are you? Are you still in Venice?"

"Actually, I'm in Portsmouth now. The conference finished on Tuesday, and we got Brandenburg to invest with us."

"Oh? That's - that's great!"

"It should be worthwhile," his father said dismissively. "Camilla sent me your status report. Did you correct the error in the accounting office?"

"Uh, yes, of course. Just let me find it." Blaine flipped through his outbox, paused, and then began to tear through the filing cabinet, searching for the small packet that he'd stored away carefully the night before.

"Blaine?"

"Just, just a minute!" he laughed nervously, his cheeks flushing. Finally, he found the folder and quickly flipped through the pages until he found what he was looking for. "Sorry. It was supposed to be $332.23, not $322.23. I re-filed it myself."

"Missed the mark by ten dollars," Mr. Anderson said disapprovingly. "Tell Charles not be lazy with his numbers. Those mistakes can cost us. I'll give him a proper reprimand when I return."

"It was an honest mistake," Blaine protested. "He's been having a hard time lately in his personal life, it was probably just a fluke."

His father sighed. "Blaine, it's _his_ responsibility to ensure that he doesn't make mistakes, honest or otherwise. He's excellent at what he does - it's why I made him head of the department - but he needs to maintain that level of excellence, or the company suffers for it. That's how this business works. I hold myself to the same standards, because that reflects on everyone."

"I know." Blaine slid the paper back into its folder, tucking it safely into the outbox. The silence on the other line lengthened.

"Well." His father paused, seeming a little uncertain himself. "You've done a good job this month, son. If the flights connect through on time, I'll be back on Saturday afternoon."

Blaine froze. "In three days?"

"That's what it adds up to, yes." He sounded faintly amused. "I'll stop over in San Diego for a night, and I'll be ready to go back to the office on Monday. Let the staff know."

"Okay."

"I have to go now, Blaine. Tell Harold too, and call your mother. Goodbye."

"Goodbye." Blaine shut off the speaker and lowered his head onto the desktop, letting out a tremendous sigh.

* * *

><p>"You've been quiet today," Kurt remarked as they wandered through the shopping mall. Kurt's boots tapped sharply against the tile, echoing in direct counterpoint with the muted whirl of the wheels of the stroller he was pushing in front of him.<p>

Blaine shrugged a little and thrust his hands into his pockets, turning his attention to the nearest window display.

They'd started out meeting each other every Sunday afternoon at the park, and then dinner at the Hummels' on Wednesday nights too, and then coffee on Fridays, and now it wasn't unusual for Blaine to make the drive from Westerville to Lima three or four times a week. He didn't mind, of course, but he hadn't burned through tanks of gasoline so quickly since his high school days.

Tacky tissue-paper pumpkins and a prop-up skeleton poster caught Blaine's eye. "I can't believe they're already setting up for Halloween. It's six weeks away."

"I can't believe that they aren't stocking up Christmas things." Kurt stopped the stroller in front of the Kids' Gap. "Do you mind, Blaine?"

"No problem." Nevertheless, Blaine cringed a little as he followed Kurt inside. It had happened an eternity ago, but he still felt a little shock of embarrassment whenever he passed the threshold of a Gap.

"I need to get a new pair of pajamas," Kurt explained as they picked their way through the colorful racks. "He stained his last one with grape juice. I don't know what Dad was thinking, giving him grape juice at night. The sugar always makes him hyper." He scrutinized one pair of green race car jammies with a critical eye, feeling the material carefully and examining the tag. "I wish we had better options here," Kurt murmured. "I like to buy natural fiber clothes for Jace."

"Try online?" Blaine suggested, digging through a bin of flashy socks that reminded him oddly of Rachel Berry's famous leg wear.

Kurt moved on to another table. "Finances," he said curtly. "It's a little hard to be choosy when you're not cutting a regular salary. Freelance work doesn't pay as well as I'd like it to."

"If you need help-" Blaine began automatically, only to snap his lips shut when Kurt glared at him.

"I know it's coming from a place of caring, but don't," he warned. "I've already fought with Dad and Carole about this. I'm doing fine. I have to be more thrifty, that's all - and I've always prided myself on that, haven't I? I turned up an exquisite wardrobe in high school with a judicious use of coupons and discount warehouses." He straightened a tiny striped shirt, frowning. "It's just a bit harder with Jace's things. He won't exactly wait to ruin his clothes until new ones go on sale."

Blaine glanced down at the sleeping boy in the stroller as Kurt circled around the rack. Jace had fallen asleep during the car ride, which was kind of nice, actually, as it meant that Kurt was undistracted. As if feeling Blaine's gaze, he wiggled in his seat, his little finger slipping into his mouth. Blaine couldn't help but grin - he was a damn cute kid.

"Does this look like sky or robin's egg to you?" Kurt asked, calling his attention to some blue sleep pants.

"Sky, I think."

Kurt frowned and put them back down, and then his expression morphed into one of sheer disgust. He held up a pair of star-patterned booties with the very tips of his fingers. "I can't look at these without horrifying flashbacks to Rachel."

Blaine laughed too loudly, drawing a dark look from the lone clerk at the register. "That's exactly what I was thinking."

Kurt smiled at him and pushed the stroller forward, heading to the next aisle.

"How is Rachel, anyway?" Blaine asked curiously. "Have you heard from her lately?"

"I talked to her a few weeks ago. She's okay, as far as I know; there's some drama with her newest boyfriend, of course, and she's having a battle of wills with one of her co-stars."

"So she finally made it to Broadway?"

Kurt snorted. "From the way she talks about it, you'd think so. It's a private company in Manhattan that does stock musicals: _Guys and Dolls, Cats, A Chorus Line, Phantom_, you know, that sort of thing. It's like Broadway without the price . . . and the talent." He stopped himself. "That wasn't quite fair. They're not bad, and it's good experience for her. They pull college grads to pad out their cast."

"Did you ever try out for it?"

Kurt was still for a moment. "Too busy," he said at last. "I was working all the time, and then Jace came along."

"I understand." Blaine turned around, regretting that he'd brought up something that was obviously a sore point, and fixed his attention on the clothes. They sorted through the racks in companionable silence until Blaine came across one caramel-toned pajama set with a subtle plaid print. "How about this one? It's sort of Burberryesque, and it's twenty percent off."

Kurt considered it for a moment before selecting the right size and paying at the register. "Anywhere else you want to look?" he asked as they stepped back out into the main hall.

"Actually, I'm a bit hungry. Do you mind if we find something before we go?"

The mingled smells of cheap, greasy pizza and sub-par Chinese food wafted over them as they entered the food court. Blaine decided to splurge with dessert, ordering a chocolate sundae with walnuts, while Kurt indulged with some low-sugar frozen yogurt. They sat at a too-small plastic table, parking the stroller alongside it.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Kurt said after a while, blotting at his mouth with a napkin.

"My dad's flying in tomorrow."

"And what's wrong with that? I thought it was just a business trip."

"I don't know. I guess I got used to the days being easier without him there, and I'm not looking forward to it going back to . . . what it usually is. It's been tense between us for a while now." He stirred his melting sundae, jabbing at a walnut. "I really messed things up, Kurt."

"How so?" Kurt's voice was soft with concern.

He closed his eyes. "I haven't talked about it much."

"You don't have to."

"No. No, I want to." He pushed his bowl aside, lacing his fingers together on the tabletop. "Okay, about a year and a half ago, my dad sent me as a rep to this client's party - a _big_ client, one that Dad wanted to join in on an investment package that he'd been working on. It was a dinner party, a swank one at a country club in Columbus. The client was an ex-mayor or something like that, and the conversation turned to politics." He glanced up at Kurt and added, "It was right after the Resolution passed in Ohio."

Kurt sucked in a quick breath. "I see."

"Well, one of his other guests just started . . . _ranting_ about the state of the country and the Constitution, and he went off on this bullshit about how _those people _were a bunch of malcontents with a persecution complex, and I lost my head. Feelings were running high that week."

"Of course."

Blaine could feel his cheeks burning hot, but he soldiered on. "I stood up and yelled at him, called him a bigoted dickhead, and stormed out. Of course, the client politely declined to do business with the firm after that. My dad was so humiliated. It spread through the rumor mill like you wouldn't believe. He hadn't even told his _business partner _that I was gay yet."

Kurt clicked his tongue, crumpling a napkin into his empty dish.

"It could have been a lot worse, I suppose. Haunheiser could have fired me if he'd wanted to; he technically owns a larger share of the company than my dad does. I don't think he was pleased with me, exactly, but he'd always liked my work, and he doesn't tend to pry into his employees' personal lives anyway."

"But your dad-?" Kurt prompted delicately.

"He hasn't forgiven me for it. Or if he has, he doesn't trust me not to fly off the handle again. I haven't been sent out by myself since then. All things considered, I don't blame him; it was an inappropriate way to behave."

Kurt propped his chin in his hands, his eyes clear and searching in a way that made Blaine want to squirm in his seat. "It wasn't really about that, was it?"

There was no point in feigning ignorance. "It was the last straw," he said.

"I'm sorry." Kurt stretched his hand across the table, touching Blaine's interlocked fingers - it sent a little frisson of warmth shivering up Blaine's spine. "Truly, I am."

Jace shifted, blinking his sleep-clouded eyes open, and began to fuss, reaching out for his father. Kurt bent down to unlatch him from the stroller and then pulled back, wrinkling his nose. "Time for a diaper change, sweetie." He grabbed his bag and hoisted Jace into his arms. "I'll be right back."

Blaine was glad for the brief rest; Kurt had always been able to ferret out the things that Blaine did his best to overlook. He finished up his sundae and tossed the garbage in a nearby trash can, idly watching other shoppers pass by until Kurt returned from the restrooms with Jace, who looked far more content.

"Are you ready to go?"

"Sure." Kurt tried to put Jace in his stroller, but the little boy was adamant about walking on his own two feet. Blaine folded the stroller up and slung the connecting strap over his shoulder like an arrow quiver, following them out into the sunshine.

Kurt stopped at the edge of the sidewalk, even though there were no cars nearby. "What do we do at a street?" he asked, pointing at the broad yellow lines of the crosswalk. He repeated the question again, and then Jace seemed to get it, reaching up to take Kurt's proffered fingers. Blaine smiled to himself, stepping up to join them, and just as they started across the walk, he felt something tug on his jeans - he glanced down to see Jace lifting his free hand up expectantly.

With a warm, pleased feeling settling deep in his chest, Blaine gently took hold of the small, cold fingers and walked on.

* * *

><p>From the moment he woke up, Kurt knew it was going to be one of <em>those <em>days. He hadn't slept well that night, and that inexplicable, gray feeling that had only just started to evaporate was back with a vengeance, pressing heavily on him and making him feel old and tired.

Jace had been very playful all morning, wanting Kurt's constant attention and participation. Kurt found himself dozing off during the construction of their sixteenth block tower, so he forced down a second cup of black coffee, which - of course - gave him a caffeine headache.

It was a tremendous relief when Jace finally settled down for his nap at two. He tried to work on some sketches while Jace slept, but the lines all felt off, the colors all wrong. Throwing the pad aside in frustration, he sorted through some fabric swatches, trying to reorganize his portfolio, only to be distracted as Jace woke up abruptly, panicked from the remnants of a nightmare.

Kurt rocked him, cuddled him closed as he whimpered and tried to burrow himself into Kurt's side. His heart was beating so fast, and Kurt hated to see him afraid. He'd talked to a few pediatricians about it before, but all of them had told him that it was a stage he would grow out of eventually, which was cold comfort; Kurt didn't know what Jace could possibly be watching or hearing that could trigger nightmares at this age, but there wasn't much he could do except provide some reassurance afterwards.

Usually Jace was able to fall back asleep, but he stubbornly stayed awake today, and Kurt groaned inwardly. At least it was late enough in the afternoon that Dad and Carole would be home soon to help.

After a while, Jace began to push against Kurt's chest, whining to get down and play; Kurt let him go and he rooted listlessly through his toybox before coming back over to the couch and whining to be picked up. Kurt bit the inside of his cheek and held him for a few minutes more until Jace squirmed his way back down to the floor again.

"Do you want some water?"

"Water!" Jace held out his hands eagerly.

"Stay right here and play, okay? Daddy will go get you some water." Kurt hauled himself off the sofa with a grunt and poured some filtered water in a clean sippy cup, blinking rapidly against the bright kitchen light.

"Here's your wat-" Kurt stopped in the doorway, stunned. His fabric swatches, which had been neatly stacked on the coffee table, were scattered all across the floor, crumpled up like used tissues. "Jace!"

His son peered at him with huge eyes, one finger sneaking into his mouth nervously.

"Did you do this? Clean this up right now." Kurt struggled to keep his voice even. _Don't threaten. Don't yell. Be calm. _"Jace, you know you're not supposed to play with Daddy's things. Help me pick these up."

Jace backed up against the sofa, his brow pinched in a frown. Muttering under his breath, Kurt quickly snatched up the swatches, smoothing them out as best he could and setting them far out of reach on the picture stand in the corner.

He crouched down in front of Jace. "Do not do that again. You have your own toys to play with. And when Daddy asks you to help, you . . ." He broke off as Jace scrambled around him, heading directly for the picture stand. "Jace, don't you touch that!"

Stretching up unsteadily on his tiptoes, Jace reached for the stack of fabric, but he wasn't tall enough - he pushed at the stand itself, which wobbled precariously.

"Jace Emerson Hummel!" Kurt snarled. "You're being a very bad boy right now, so _stop it_!"

Jace's lower lip trembled and then his eyes lit with defiant fire, and he smacked his round fists deliberately against the stand. Kurt let out a shout as the largest picture frame tipped right off the edge, landing with an almighty crash, glass shards skittering across the floorboards.

Kurt was running before it hit the ground. Jace screamed in terror and fell onto his hands and knees, and Kurt scooped him up, rushing him into the kitchen.

There was one large scratch on the front of his arm, and the stinging pain and the sight of the blood sent Jace into a shrieking, howling fit - he fought Kurt desperately as the cut was cleaned and bandaged and then wailed for another fifteen minutes, inconsolable, before finally falling asleep from sheer exhaustion. Kurt laid him down on the couch and began mechanically sweeping up the mess, taking care to pick up every single bit of glass and setting the empty frame safely on the counter.

Carole came home just as he was putting the broom and dustpan in the hall closet. "Doing some cleaning?" she asked cheerfully. She looked up at him, and her smile faded. "Kurt?"

He stared at her, jumping when she touched his shoulder.

"Honey, you don't look so good. Are you okay?"

"Jace broke your picture frame," he heard himself say. "He cut himself, but he's okay. I cleaned it up. I'll replace it for you."

"Kurt-"

"He's sleeping on the couch. Would you keep an eye on him? I need to go upstairs for a minute." Without waiting for an answer, he turned tail and walked calmly up the stairs and into the bathroom, locking the door behind him. Turning the tap, he splashed his face and washed his hands before he sank down onto the floor and began to cry, muffling the sobs against his sleeve.

He didn't know how much time had passed, but too soon, his dad's footsteps pounded outside the door. "Kurt?" The doorknob jiggled. "Hey, can you let me in?"

"Sure. Just . . . just wait a minute. I'm going to the bathroom." Reluctantly, Kurt rose and brushed himself off, wiping at his red-rimmed eyes and flushing the toilet before unlocking the door.

"It's all yours," he said, trying to brush past his father, but Burt caught him by the arm. Kurt didn't bother struggling as his dad steered him into the bedroom and urged him into the chair by the vanity.

"You look like you're about to pass out. Are you sick?"

Kurt shook his head.

"Bad day?"

His father's rough palm tightened reassuringly on his shoulder, and Kurt nodded stiffly.

"We all have shit days," Burt said, as if he could read his son's mind. "No reason to be mad at yourself."

"Jace . . ."

"I'll watch him tonight. Get some shut-eye. You look like you haven't slept through the night in weeks."

Kurt shifted restlessly on the chair, pulling at his sleeves.

"You wanna talk about something?"

"Not particularly, no."

Burt patted his knee and got up to leave, but when he reached the doorway, Kurt said, "How did you deal with me? On the bad days, I mean."

His dad came back immediately, settling himself comfortably on the bed; Kurt tried not to think about the grease stains that his jumpsuit was probably leaving on the bedspread. "It's a different situation here. You were a lot older than Jace and an independent squirt to begin with. Not to say that I dealt with you perfectly." He shrugged a bit wistfully. "I let it get real quiet between us, and it took a good while for us to start talking again. There were lots of things I could've done better."

"I'm afraid sometimes," Kurt began, choosing his words carefully, "that I'm not thinking of what he needs as much as I should. I'm not patient enough."

"You love your son. That doesn't mean it's bad to get pissed with him now and then. You can't reason with a toddler."

Kurt nodded, tucking his legs up on the chair, and waited. His dad had that look - that one that said he wanted to say something important but he was still searching for the words to frame it.

"I know you're not a kid anymore, Kurt, and you've been a single dad from the start, but can I give you some advice?"

"Go ahead."

"When you're a parent, you're always looking out for what's best for your kid, but you can't let your entire world revolve around them, you know? You have to be 'Kurt' sometimes, not just 'Dad.' Don't be mad at yourself for wanting that."

"I'm not," Kurt protested.

"I was talking to Carole -" He must have caught Kurt's instinctive frown, because his own expression hardened. "C'mon now, she's been worried about you. You gonna let me finish? Good. She was telling me about this book she read when she was in college. I can't remember the title right now, but it was big in the 50s. A lady wrote about how all these women were real unhappy because they were at home and didn't get out at all. Everything was about their kids and their husbands and they didn't have their own lives and they didn't know who they were, so they were miserable. And because they were miserable, they thought there was something messed up with them, that they weren't good enough mothers."

"So you think I'm a desperate housewife." Kurt barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes, a habit he'd worked laboriously to rid himself of.

Burt snorted. "Carole explained it a hell of a lot better than I did. It made sense to me, though. How long has it been since you've gone out to do something for yourself, by yourself? Honestly, Kurt."

"Like you said, it's a different situation," Kurt said evasively.

His father wasn't fooled. "We were all ready for to babysit for you, to help you out, but you haven't gone out alone once. He's old enough to be apart from you for a while, Kurt, and you're gonna go crazy if you're with him every second of the day. Your health is important too. Maybe if you could talk to somebody-"

"You've made your point, Dad. Are you done now?"

Burt raised his hands mildly. "Okay, okay, I'll back off. Just . . . just think about it." He gave Kurt's shoulder another squeeze. "Get some sleep, kiddo. I'll bring up dinner for you later."

Kurt considered refusing and hauling himself down the stairs to cook, but the bed looked so tempting. "Thank you."

Lowering the shades and clicking off the lights, Kurt stripped down to his boxers and slid between the cool sheets, sinking gratefully into the mattress. Curling onto his side, he stared at the white slats of light that pushed at the edges of the blinds.

His dad and Carole meant well. As much as they tried, neither of them were particularly subtle: he'd seen right through his dad's requests for "grandson time" and Carole's constant offers of snacks and second helpings at dinner. He knew they just wanted to help, though that didn't stop him from becoming impatient with it.

Knowing that he'd become so transparent, so incapable of dealing with his problems, frustrated him endlessly. He'd survived in the city. He'd made himself keep going that first year because he had no other choice. He couldn't have collapsed there; there had been no one to pick up the slack. But here . . . .

Kurt rolled onto his back, closing his eyes against the low throb in his temples.

Here it was too easy to give in and let himself slide back down - there were people who would gladly take on his responsibilities if he abandoned them, not realizing what damage their help would do.

It was terrible to think that after everything was said and done, he was only as strong as necessity forced him to be.


	6. And A Bottle of Rum

_A/N: Sorry for the long wait - I was distracted by uni work and The First Time. Thanks to all of you for reading and favoriting/subscribing/reviewing!_

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><p><strong>Chapter Five: And A Bottle of Rum<strong>

_October 2020_

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><p>If there was one thing that Kurt disliked about his son, it was his predilection for loud, obnoxious cartoon characters.<p>

"Wonder Pets to the rescue!" the TV squawked, and Jace wriggled with delight, swaying unsteadily to the irritating music. His skinny chicken-legs almost folded under, but he caught himself and started stomping his feet in some approximation of the beat.

Kurt sighed to himself and pushed another pin through a fold of broadcloth. Wonder Pets had been off the air for almost ten years, but ever since Carole had found a BluRay of the complete series last Christmas, Jace refused to watch anything else. Kurt practically had the dialogue memorized at this point. At least the show tried to incorporate lots of music into its plots, but that didn't really make it any less annoying.

Jace bounced too vigorously, turned in a dizzy half-circle, and plopped down on his bottom. At first he seemed puzzled about how he'd ended up on the floor. Looking to his father for reassurance, he rolled onto his knees, discovered that he wasn't hurt, and then laughed as if his fall was the most hilarious thing in the universe.

Kurt couldn't help but laugh too, and that only made the whole thing funnier to Jace. He was getting into that theatrical stage, and anything that garnered a reaction thrilled him; he stood up and deliberately plopped back down, beaming at his cleverness and waiting eagerly for Kurt's reaction. After doing this a few more times, he seemed to grow tired of it, wobbling over to the end-table where his father sat. He hugged Kurt's leg, pressing one fat, pink cheek against his knee. "Up, Daddy."

Kurt hoisted him up to give him a kiss, breathing in the faint, familiar scents of milk and baby shampoo. The next episode switched on automatically, and Jace sat quietly in his lap to watch the opening credits.

Sorting through a puddle of striped broadcloth, Kurt estimated how long it would take him to finish the tiny shirt and matching pants. Probably about another hour. It was good to sew again. He'd missed the comforting repetition, the rhythm of the machine and the crisp symmetry of zippered lines.

He glanced down at his phone; it was nearly twelve. Blaine should be on his lunch break now.

The phone only rang once before Blaine picked up. "Kurt? Thank God."

Kurt sent it to speaker. "Hard morning?" He picked up his needle, wrapping it with gray thread and picking up where he'd left off. Jace was absorbed enough with the television that he didn't seem interested in interfering.

"You have no idea."

"What is it? Did Charles lose one of his files?" He smiled to himself. "Did Camilla's nails clash with her outfit?"

"It's Dad's first day back." Blaine sounded exhausted and more than a little bitter.

Kurt's amusement was short-lived. "I'm sorry. Do you want to talk about it?" He had to snort at himself for that. Jesus, he sounded like his dad.

"Hold on. Let me shut the door." There was a flurry of rustling, a faint snap, and then Blaine's voice was back. "I don't know what to think. He's acting very odd."

Kurt knew not to push; he focused on his stitches and kept quiet, waiting for Blaine to collect his thoughts.

"He hasn't said anything out of place - not that he said much, but -" He hesitated before saying tentatively, "Do you remember that night my mom and dad came home early from their date night and . . . uh, found us?"

Of course he remembered. It had been horribly embarrassing in a way which had struck Kurt as being ridiculous even back then, back when he'd been so cautious about the way he presented himself, so aware of how people saw him. The two of them hadn't even been doing anything that would have gotten them a reprimand from Burt and Carole - just snuggling on the couch in front of the TV - but the way that Blaine's parents had looked at them . . . . "I do."

"It's like that. He keeps sending me these weird looks." Blaine sighed, exasperated. "That sounds stupid, now that I'm saying it out loud."

"It's not stupid," Kurt asserted. "You Anderson men communicate through eye contact only."

Blaine chuckled reluctantly. "True."

"Did he say anything?"

"He informed me that I was having dinner with them tomorrow. He usually asks, just to be polite. I'm an adult - I know I shouldn't be freaking out over these things, but I never know what to expect with him. It puts me on edge." He exhaled loudly. "I'll figure it out. Maybe it's nothing. Sorry, Kurt, I'm not trying to dump all my issues on you. How has your day been?"

"It's fine." Jace was swinging his legs, kicking Kurt's shin lightly; Kurt shifted him sideways on his lap. "You can talk to me about anything. I've been putting the finishing touches on Jace's Halloween costume today."

"Are you dressing up?"

"Normally, I would consider matching outfits too twee, but . . . " he shifted Jace onto his other thigh, stretching out his sore leg, "what's the point of doing Halloween if you're not going all out?"

"So you're going as . . . ?" Blaine prodded. "C'mon, give me a clue."

Kurt suspended the moment for as long as he could. "Pirates."

"Gosh, and here I was expecting something revolutionary."

"It's Kurt Hummel's unique spin on pirates," Kurt protested, a bit offended but mostly amused. "Do you think I'd put any dime-store hat and historically inaccurate shirt on my son? I've been working on this for a week."

"Of course." Blaine's voice was warm, affectionate. "I expected nothing less from you."

Something fond bubbled up inside Kurt in return, and he made a snap decision. "Come trick-or-treating with us on Monday," he said.

"Really?"

"Unless you have other plans, of course. I'm not normally in favor of a holiday that promotes unhealthy eating habits in children, but my dad informs me that it's a crime against nature not to let Jace go. Also, I get to make him a spectacular costume. It's not everyone's idea of fun, but I figured I would let you have most of the candy." When Blaine kept quiet, Kurt began to regret his hasty offer. Maybe it was too childish - why would a grown man want to tag along for trick-or-treating?

"If you're sure you don't mind, I'd love to come," Blaine said. "Do I get to dress up too?"

"Only if you want to." Kurt tucked back a smile. "Finn is, but Jocelyn isn't. Dad and Carole are going to host a party for some friends. Nothing too wild, though, so don't get your hopes up. I know how you are around alcohol."

A faintly disgruntled noise crackled in the speaker. "You're never going to let that go, are you?"

"Never." He bit the inside of his cheek to bottle the chuckle that had risen up his throat. "I'll text you the time later; I know you have to go soon. And Blaine?" He hesitated, then barreled straight through it. "About your father - it'll be okay. Trust me."

* * *

><p>The Anderson house was a lovely property - small and suburban but elegantly decorated with a manicured lawn and swept sidewalks. Blaine shook out his coat for any stray leaves before he pressed the doorbell; the chime had barely rung once before he heard someone moving on the other side.<p>

As soon as the oak panel swung inward, he knew something was off. His mother generally met him at the door with something cheerful, some story from her ladies' club, some funny anecdote from work. She was subdued today, a bit wan, her dark hair pulled back painfully in a severe knot.

"Hello, darling." She kissed him as he hung up his coat. "I made pork tonight; I hope you don't mind."

"No, that sounds great, Mom. Do you want some help?" He followed her down the long entrance hallway, their shoes rapping hollowly on the mirror-polished wood.

"Everything's done already, but you can get it to the table for me. Your father's waiting."

Blaine helped her carry the dishes from the kitchen to the dining room and sat down at the table. His father grunted a low 'hello,' avoiding his eyes. He glanced over at his mother, noticing her cut-and-paste lipstick smile and the defensive set of her shoulders, and an unpleasant feeling began to filter through his stomach. They had been fighting again - and probably about _him_.

"Here, have some salad, Blaine." His mother's voice was bright and brittle. She poured some white wine while they traded the dishes back and forth.

"What's this, Marijo?" Blaine's father broke the silence, holding a bowl at arm's length and looking faintly, politely disgusted.

Her cheeks flushed pink, but she managed a tremulous smile. "It's _pinakbet_, Tim. I made it very mild for you."

With a faint sigh, he passed the dish on to Blaine and loaded a spoonful of mashed potatoes on his plate instead. Blaine winced a little at the look on his mother's face and took an extra serving of the _pinakbet_ himself.

For a while, it was quiet as they all concentrated on eating. Blaine wanted to enjoy the meal - his mother was a spectacular cook, and she put so much effort into dinners, even though most of her time was consumed with her own work - but the taste of his food was soured by the tension in every too-sharp movement of his father's fork and the trembling swish of the wine in his mother's hand.

"Camilla told me that you cancelled drinks with Ed this Monday," his father said suddenly.

"Tim-"

"Let me _talk_, Marijo. This is business with Blaine; it has nothing to do with you."

Blaine saw his mother quickly raise her glass to her lips, her fingers tightening on the stem.

"Yes, I did," Blaine told him calmly, forcing himself to pick up his fork and casually cut another strip of meat. "I arranged to meet on Tuesday instead. He was amenable to it."

He shook his head. "You didn't consult me."

"Considering that I've been dealing exclusively with his account for two months, I didn't think it was necessary to bother you about something so inconsequential."

"Something very important must have come up. You've had that appointment in place for weeks."

Blaine stared across the table, his mother's eyes wide and alarmed behind the rim of her wine glass, and then he understood. Bracing himself, he said flatly, "I'm spending the evening with the Hummels."

His father didn't even blink. He'd known already.

Blaine immediately looked to his mother, and her face was painted with quiet apology.

"It's reckless business," his father said, his voice laced with a hint of reproach. "Our first priority has always been the clients."

"Don't pretend this is about the client, Dad," Blaine snapped, shocking himself and his parents. "You wouldn't have even brought it up if I had cancelled the meeting to go to some office party. This is about Kurt."

"You've been neglecting your duties and shaving off time from your work day. How many times have you been to Lima in the past month? Ten? Twelve? It's ridiculous."

"He hasn't been neglecting anything, Tim," his mother protested, color high in her face. "Blaine's been jumping through hoops for you for years. You've overworked our own son-"

"This is between us, and for the last time, _stay out of it_!"

Blaine saw how his mother flinched back, and something furious ripped through him. "Don't yell at her!"

His father's face contorted, and for a wild instant, Blaine was poised to jump up from his chair, but then the moment passed. "I'm sorry, Marijo," he said, stunned, running an agitated hand over his face. "We're all a bit worked up tonight."

She nodded tightly.

"Blaine, let's talk this over like rational adults," he continued, deliberately lowering his voice. "You can't stay focused on your tasks if you're dividing your time with these commutes and other obligations. Think about it - it wears you down, makes you more tired. Your mother has been worried about you, traveling on the roads late at night all the time."

"The Hummels have always been extraordinarily kind to me, and I haven't had the chance to see Kurt in several years," Blaine replied stiffly. "I don't know how long he's staying, so of course I'm trying to fit in as much time for him as I can. My productivity hasn't been affected."

"Maybe not." His father's eyes were sharp, suspicious. "You've always had a strong . . . investment in the Hummel boy. We don't -" He hesitated. "We didn't have much discussion on the topic before."

Blaine reached calmly for his glass and took a drink, trying to wash away the cottonmouth sensation. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"For God's sake, Blaine, do you think I don't pay attention at all? I know he took off for god-knows-where, and you were a disorganized mess for a full year after that. He has too tight a hold on you, and if he's not staying here permanently, it would be better for you to leave well enough alone. He practically married someone else. And he has a _child_. It wasn't good for you then and it's not good for you now. I thought we'd finally gotten past that stage."

Gritting his teeth, Blaine struggled to rein in his temper. Christ, after all this time - after all that so-called progress - it was still the same. "Look, I know you have a problem with Kurt, but he's a good friend of mine, and I'm perfectly capable of choosing in what way and with whom I spend my free time. I rearranged the schedule with Mr. Milhouse because I made a commitment to the Hummels, and Mr. Milhouse was not offended or inconvenienced by the change. I handled it professionally, and I don't mind explaining that to you, but my personal reasons and activities are just that. Personal."

His father's eyes narrowed, but he said nothing more, and the table fell silent again. Blaine forced himself to eat, his stomach churning with nerves and residual adrenaline, and quickly refused his mother's offer of coffee and dessert.

He'd never been so ready to get away from his parents' house.

* * *

><p>It was only seven o'clock, but the suburban streets were already filling with little clusters of costumed children and the occasional bored adult. Blaine drove especially slowly down the lane to the Hummel-Hudson house, admiring some of the more outlandish outfits. Halloween had never been much of a holiday in his family, though he'd always loved it.<p>

There were already a few cars parked in the drive, so he stopped along the curb. The porch lights were lit brightly, two pumpkins flanked the front steps, and an attractive arrangement of harvest brush stood in a clay pot next to the door.

He went up the walk, tugging at the bottom of his red-striped shirt compulsively. He hadn't really dressed up since his last masquerade party had been back in college, but he'd found a vaguely sailor-esque top and some boots that would have to do.

A short brunette answered the door, shyly introducing herself as Finn's wife, and she led Blaine into the living room, which was packed with about a dozen people.

"Blaine, we're so glad you could make it," Carole said, hurrying over to give him a hug, just as she did every time he visited. She looked nice, decked out in a skirt, heeled boots, and a tri-corn hat.

Burt looked over at him from the sofa and nodded stoically.

"Kurt's upstairs, but he'll be down soon," Carole went on. She gestured toward the kitchen. "Go on and get yourself a glass of punch and a cookie. Kurt says like you like sugar cookies without frosting, so he set a few aside for you next to the blender."

She didn't have to tell him twice - his mouth watered at the very mention of Kurt's sugar cookies. They'd been his mother's recipe, and he always made them with almond extract instead of vanilla. And somehow Kurt had remembered about the frosting. Kurt always remembered those little things.

He was on his second cookie when Kurt appeared in the kitchen. "Getting a head-start on the sugar rush?" He was impeccably dressed; no tacky eye patches or dishtowel bandannas in sight. A loose, flowy white dress-shirt was topped with a wool vest, dark pants, knee-high black boots, and a blue sash. A light smudge of artfully applied eyeliner completed the outfit.

"You look very . . ." Blaine struggled for a good adjective. "Seaworthy."

Kurt laughed. "Thanks, I think."

"Did you make all of that?" Stepping closer, he bent to examine the decorative stitching on the shoulders of the vest.

"You'd be surprised by how much of this I already owned," Kurt said dryly, re-buttoning his sleeve tacks. "All I needed to buy was Jace's hat and some face paint."

"Where is he, anyway? I've got to see his costume."

Obligingly, Kurt scouted the way back to the crowded living room. Finn, who had somehow managed to find a store-bought costume in his size, was entertaining Jace at the punch bowl beside the sofa, stirring the ladle and letting it spin through the fluorescent orange liquid.

Jace was wearing a striped red shirt with flayed edges and dark pants with purple patches. His hat was pinned carefully to his bandana to keep it from falling off, and the whole ensemble was topped off with yellow face-paint facial hair.

"He's adorable," Blaine blurted. "Oh my god, look at that little moustache."

Burt snorted, clearing his throat unconvincingly when Carole elbowed him in the ribs.

Kurt straightened his son's hat. "Can you say 'hi' to Blaine?"

It took a moment longer for Jace to notice Blaine, but when he did, he offered him a big mostly-toothless smile. "Daddy Pirate," he announced, directing Blaine's attention to Kurt with one pointing finger.

"Yes, Daddy's a pirate," Kurt echoed, with a resigned tone that suggested that he'd heard this observation a few dozen times already.

"Jace Pirate."

"Yes, Jace is a pirate too. So is Finn, so is Grandma, and so is Blaine."

"And Gina too," Finn piped up.

Blaine turned to him. "Gina?"

"Joss's kid sister," Finn explained. "When she heard what Jace was going to be for Halloween, she wanted to be a pirate too. Kurt helped her out with the costume."

"Piracy runs in the family, apparently."

As if summoned by name, a filly-limbed little girl charged directly into Finn. "Can we go now, Uncle Finn? Joss said we could go as soon as Kurt's friend came, so can we go, please, _please_?"

"Okay. I mean, aye aye."

Kurt rolled his eyes at Finn's horrid accent. "Let's go, then."

As Jocelyn and Finn shepherded Gina out the door, Kurt paused to bundle Jace into a thick coat and scarf; straightening, he saw Blaine's expression and sighed. "I'm willing to suffer for my art, but I'm not risking a cold for him. He's a terror when he's not feeling well."

After stowing an extra fleece blanket in his bag, Kurt led the way out the door, and they were off. Gina skipped fearlessly ahead with Finn and Jocelyn, making a beeline for the throng of neighborhood kids running every which way. Jace clung to Kurt's hand, penny-eyed and cautious, flinching back a little from the gleeful shouts of the older kids. Kurt finally scooped him up, and he relaxed against his father's shoulder; Blaine walked a half-step behind Kurt, pulling faces to distract Jace.

He was asleep before they reached the first block of houses.

Kurt just laughed and fished out the blanket to tuck around him. "I figured that would happen. He's been busy all day with the excitement and the set-up for the party. It's okay, though. He played pirate ship with Finn and Dad all afternoon, so he got some good use out of the costume."

They walked along anyway, enjoying the enthusiasm of the other kids - and Finn.

"He really is a big baby," Kurt murmured, watching his brother, who was trying unsuccessfully to sneak a piece of candy from Gina's pumpkin bucket. "It's why he and Jace get along so famously."

"Do they want kids of their own?"

"Yeah, they've been trying for a few years, actually. Joss's doctor isn't worried, though. Sometimes it just takes a while." Kurt readjusted Jace's blankets. "I never thought I'd be a dad before Finn."

There was something very pleasant about this, just the three of them, like it was an everyday thing, like it was a regular routine. Blaine had the oddest urge to reach over and take Kurt's other hand as they walked; his fingers itched to feel that old, familiar press of skin-on-skin. Kurt had always had lovely hands: soft and slender but so surprisingly strong. Blaine wanted people to see, he wanted them to know that he and Kurt were walking together . . . .

He jammed his hands in his pockets.

When they returned to the house an hour later, the party was already in full swing, overfilled with people from Burt's campaign office, Carole's friends, and a few guys that Blaine recognized from the garage. As soon as they got in the door, Burt swooped in and eased his grandson out of Kurt's arms. "I need to get away for a minute, kiddo; I'll put him down."

"It's past your bedtime too, Genie," Jocelyn said, startling Blaine a bit - he hadn't heard her say more than three words the entire night. "Leave your bucket for us to check, and you can have it back in the morning. I'll run back home to get your pajamas, but you can start washing up. Uncle Finn will show you where you're sleeping. Kurt, do you mind checking it?"

Gina whined a little, eventually surrendering her pail reluctantly into Kurt's hands.

"Don't eat it all, Kurt," she begged. "Promise?"

"I promise."

"Cross your heart?"

"Cross my heart. Go on with Uncle Finn, and you'll get your loot back soon."

The kitchen was empty except for a scattering of empty plates and a sink full of dirty cups.

"I'll help," Blaine offered, pushing aside some dishes to make room on the tabletop.

Kurt nodded, sitting down and upending the bucket. "Check it for anything suspicious," he said, staring at a mini Snickers with something like revulsion. "Besides the outrageous fat content."

Blaine chuckled to himself, picking up a handful and skimming over the wrapping.

They sat comfortably together, sorting through the mountain of candy. The low murmur of voices from the living room made for a pleasant backdrop, and Blaine finally felt himself relax a bit.

"You look like you could fall asleep right here."

"I probably could." He stretched lazily and then studied Kurt for a moment. The smudges of liner only emphasized the discolored skin beneath his eyes - it looked darker than it had the last time they'd seen each other. "You look like you could too. Jace keeping you up all hours of the night?"

Kurt hesitated, his lips drooping into a frown. "Sure. Yes."

"I told you about my dad, and you said I could always talk to you," Blaine reminded him. "That goes both ways."

"I've been a bit preoccupied," he said after a minute. "I've been thinking about a lot of things."

"Things like?"

"Happy things. Sad things." Kurt shrugged helplessly.

"About Emmett?"

Kurt's eyes flicked up to his, his expression unreadable. "I don't think I'm comfortable talking about that with you."

"That's okay." Blaine tried not to feel hurt, but his throat was suddenly tight and thick. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize." Kurt bowed his head and sighed, one thin hand shooting up to rub at the back of his neck. "I'm a mess."

"You're not a mess."

Kurt peered up at him with a sliver of a smile and leaned toward him. "Always my defender."

Blaine felt the gentle weight of Kurt's head settle against his shoulder, and he barely breathed, scared that it might startle Kurt away from him. The powdery scent of moisturizer and the light, delicate waft of his cologne - still the same after so many years - triggered something inside Blaine. He turned his head to rest lightly on top of Kurt's.

His eyes dropped without his consent to the open collar of Kurt's too-loose shirt, giving him an eyeful of lightly-dusted skin. The curve of his collarbone made a lovely contrast to the ironed fabric, and Blaine was struck by a sudden flash of memory - of mapping that delicate curve with his fingers and his lips, mouthing wetly along the expanse of a pulsing, pale throat.

He jerked his head back, terrified that Kurt had seen him gaping, but Kurt's attention had wandered sleepily. His eyes were lowered, dark lashes hovering over the slant of his cheekbones; his lips were pursed with concentration.

Blaine wanted to kiss him.

Flustered, afraid, he rocketed up from his chair, belatedly forcing out a yawn. "I'd better go, Kurt."

Kurt glanced up, startled, but he put aside the bucket and started to stand. "I'll walk you out."

"No," Blaine said far too quickly. "I think I'll be safe from the door to my car. See you on Sunday, Kurt?" Without waiting for a reply, he grabbed his coat, slipped past the mingling partygoers in the hall, and fled.


	7. The L Word

_A/N: Thanks to all of you for reading and favoriting/subscribing/reviewing!_

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Six: The L Word<strong>

_November 2020_

* * *

><p>Scandals was the only gay bar within fifty miles of Westerville, but that title of honor wasn't enough to motivate its owners to keep it current. The dingy little building still looked precisely the way it had when Blaine had first ventured through its doors with Kurt, all those years ago - even the rusty ashtrays were still propped on top of the aging television on the bar counter.<p>

The weekday crowd was usually pretty sparse, but Blaine preferred it that way; the patrons were generally older and settled, and the bar was quiet enough for Blaine to have a few decent conversations or do some work. He'd been going long enough to establish himself with the regulars, and he spent his Monday evenings watching football there and enjoying the casual companionship. The weekday bartender, Walter, was a pretty nice guy too, if a bit of a mother hen. He'd sit with Blaine and listen attentively to whatever woes were plaguing him that week, capping off his habitual glass of Sprite for no extra charge.

Tonight it was especially empty, as many of the regulars were out of state for the Thanksgiving holiday. Blaine sat at the bar, chatting with Walter and nursing his Sprite with shot of cranberry juice for festivity's sake. This was his last truly free day before the holidays, and he was very deliberately _not _thinking about Kurt tonight.

A few people trickled in as the evening went on; a giant of a man whose name Blaine could never remember plopped down beside him, smiled at him cheerfully through his bushy beard, and then turned his attention to his newspaper. Jack and Terry had set up the pool table in the back, and the faint clicking of cue against ball distracted Blaine from whatever news story was playing on the television.

Out of nowhere, a tall, gorgeous woman leaned over the bar right next to him, her red leather jacket reflecting off the dim lights. She glanced over at Blaine and then did a double-take. "Well, well, if it isn't Eyebrows Anderson," she said. Her voice was honey-dark and husky. "Still wearing your grandpa sweaters, I see."

If she hadn't had her glossy black hair pulled back tight in a familiar ponytail, he might not have recognized her. "Santana?"

"The one and only, Frodo." She tapped the bear next to Blaine on his flannel-covered shoulder. "Hey, BooBoo, find yourself another seat, 'kay? I'm talking to this guy here."

The poor man gave them both a faintly bewildered look before picking up his newspaper and sliding onto the next stool over. Santana sinuously eased down onto the vacated chair, knocking on the counter with one perfectly-manicured, imperious hand; Walter looked unimpressed but took her order anyway.

"What are you doing here?" Blaine asked when she didn't make any further attempt at conversation. She looked very different, very mature. Her features had sharpened, and she was a little heavier than the last time he'd seen her - the voluptuous curves suited her very well.

"It's a free country," she said, smirking. Her lips were scarlet. "I didn't see a 'No Dykes Allowed' sign on the door."

"No, I meant in Ohio. I thought you lived out of state."

"I do. Philadelphia, to be exact." Walter slid a bottle of imported beer and a glass across the counter; she purred out a 'thank you,' poured, and took a long swig. "I'm here for a funeral - my abuela's."

"Wow, I'm so sorry."

Santana cut him off. "It's fine. She was a bitch."

Blaine stared at her. She rolled her eyes, taking another drink.

"Christ, I forgot what a tea-slurping, bowtie-wearing WASP you are. Excuse me, let me rephrase that for you: we were never particularly close. Anyway, she hasn't technically died yet, so I'm stuck here until they pull the plug."

Blaine had no clue what to say to that.

"It's fine, though," she continued, apparently not requiring a response. "I've been whiling away my time, although this place is kind of a waste of it; I thought I'd scout out the area and see if any of the local ladies wanted a quick pick-me-up. You'd think there'd be at least one decent lezzie bar within a hundred miles of Lima by now. So I'm left with this."

She swirled a lazy hand in the direction of the tiny dance floor. "I haven't seen one hot girl all night." Abruptly spinning around on her stool, she looked him up and down in a way that made him flush. "Shave off those caterpillars and get a few more beers in me, and you might be passable." She paused, considering. "Yeah, it could work, so long as you could keep from breaking my jaw with your gigantic man-chin."

"That's . . . offensive."

"And?" she laughed. "I'm bored and horny, and it's funny watching your coattails ruffle. But I'll tone it down." Taking a dainty sip from her drink, she cut her eyes over at him speculatively. "So why are you here moping in the shittiest gay bar in Ohio, Edward Cullen?"

Blaine bristled a bit. Out of all the McKinley kids, he probably knew Santana the least - she'd left Lima two weeks after she graduated, and when they'd been in glee together, she hadn't exactly been friendly. Even after she'd come out, she preferred to direct what little attention she gave them to Kurt. Not that Blaine had necessarily wanted to talk to her. She'd been determined and outspoken and bitter and horribly, horribly brittle that year, and he couldn't remember a single time that she'd said his name without some little insult attached, the same as she did for everyone but Brittany. But he'd felt for her nonetheless, knowing how difficult it was to live in a home that crushed you from the inside out.

"I come here every week, just to get out," he said at last. It wasn't a lie.

"You mean to get laid. Pointer: you won't get a lot of dick if you sit there looking like you just got kicked off Gilligan's Island."

Blaine couldn't quite stop from chuckling, even as he winced. His clothes weren't that bad, thank you very much.

"Seriously, what's your type?" Santana swiveled on her stool, scanning the room. "Bears? Twinks? Beefcakes? You dated Hummel, so I know you don't mind the queeny ones."

Hearing her say that so offhandedly made him sharper than he would have otherwise been. "I'm _not _here for a hookup, Santana." He'd done it a few times over the years, of course, but the whole process was awkward, and he always felt absurdly guilty afterwards, even when it was perfectly understood between both parties that it was a casual one-time thing.

"Shame," she sighed. "Then at least one of us would get laid."

Blaine looked at her closely, solemnly. She'd put something glittery on her eyelashes that caught the light every time she moved her head. "Is Brittany still in Philadelphia, then?"

He immediately regretted asking when she whipped around, her eyes narrowed into furious slits. "No."

"Oh," he said tentatively. "Where is she?"

"In hell, for all I care." Then she seemed to deflate a bit, rolling back her shoulders. "Oh, fuck it. We broke up a while ago, Ernie. It doesn't matter anymore. She's happier now with someone else, so we're better off apart. Just forget about it."

They sat in heavy silence for a minute. Santana called for another beer, looking frustrated - though not necessarily with him.

"Did you know Kurt's back?" he asked eventually, playing with the tab of his Sprite can. Kurt might want to see her; he'd always liked Santana in a way that Blaine hadn't been able to fully understand, considering how they interacted primarily through veiled insults and name-calling.

She pulled her face out of her glass with a spark of interest. "Nah, I didn't know that. Why's he back?"

"He and his son are staying with his parents for awhile. You knew about his -" _Partner? Husband? _"-his boyfriend?" Blaine wished he hadn't brought it up. He didn't want to talk about Kurt right now.

"I heard." She smiled sadly at him, and for a brief flash, she seemed a bit human. "Sucks for Hummel. He was always a hell of a lot nicer to me than he should have been. Goody-two-shoes."

He heard the vague affection in her tone and felt comforted by it.

Santana reached over and polished off her drink, smoothing down the lines of her jacket. "Well, as thrilling as this conversation has been, it doesn't look like I'm going to get lucky tonight, so I'd better just go home."

"Do you have a ride?" She didn't look tipsy, but no one should be driving after two beers.

She blinked at him in mild surprise and then actually smiled, patting his cheek lightly. "Sweet, McGruff, but I'm old enough to know better. My sister will pick me up." She paused and then reached for her phone. "What's your number?"

Blaine gave it to her automatically, and a moment later, he felt his own phone buzz in his pocket.

"There," she said. "I'll be here until the end of the month, most likely, and I'm already bored as fuck. Call me up sometime, and if I have nothing better to do, we'll have lunch or something. But you're buying."

Blaine grinned, saving her number quickly in his contacts. "Sounds like a deal."

* * *

><p>Blaine was panicking. Well, he wasn't really panicking yet, but he could feel the definite signs of panic fluttering through his stomach and stopping up his chest. Parking his car in the Hummel-Hudsons' driveway, he bent his head over the steering wheel and inhaled deeply.<p>

This was fine. This was going to be fine.

It really was unfortunate that he had a problem with impulsivity. He knew it, of course - he'd always known that he had a tendency to go all out and then regret it later. It didn't help that he had a hard time saying 'no' either.

He'd been surprised when he saw Kurt's number flash on the screen in the middle of his workday, but he'd been even more surprised when he'd answered it to find that it was Carole calling.

"He's going to be very unhappy with me," she'd said, speaking in hushed tones, "but I made Kurt an appointment at a really excellent hairdresser's in Columbus at five tonight. It takes weeks to get a reservation there, so I know he won't cancel just on principle. The only problem is, I was called in to work this evening, and no one else is available to watch Jace. He seems pretty comfortable with you now, and I'd really, really appreciate it if you could watch him for just an hour or two. It wouldn't be any more than that, and of course I'd give you some gas money. I know it's an imposition, but I can't find anyone else who knows Jace well to babysit on short notice."

Blaine had agreed at once, and only when he was on his way out the office door did it occur to him that he'd just agreed to babysit. Kurt's son. By himself.

He'd never babysat anyone, except Hazel's pet canary.

The entire drive had been an exercise in anxiety. Jace was _Kurt's kid - _if something horrible happened, not only would Blaine never forgive himself, but Kurt would never forgive him.

When he finally convinced himself to go inside, the scene he was met with didn't do anything to reassure him. Kurt was standing in the living room, clutching Jace tightly as he argued with Carole - they both abruptly fell silent when Blaine appeared in the hall.

"Uh, hi," he said awkwardly. "I'm here."

Carole looked utterly relieved. "Blaine, sweetie, thank you so much. I've got to rush off or I'll be late for my shift, but everything you need should be on the kitchen table. There's a list of phone numbers for you to call if you need anything else." She looked very pointedly at Kurt. "Kurt will have to leave soon too, so I'll let him give you the briefing now." She waved goodbye and swept out the door, Kurt glaring at her all the way.

The door slammed shut, and the two of them gazed at each other uncomfortably. Blaine was afraid to step too close, afraid that he might say too much and scare Kurt away. Halloween had been a big misjudgment borne out of loneliness and sleep deprivation, and he was not going to go down that road again.

"I'll take good care of him, I promise," Blaine said finally, tamping down his own nerves. He had a good suspicion about what Carole was trying to do, and he didn't want to ruin it. He'd do anything that would give Kurt back a little bit of his flair. "Tell me what I need to know. Has he eaten already?"

Kurt's brows pinched into a scowl, but he heaved a sigh and took Blaine into the kitchen, showing him where all of the dishes and toys and diapers were located and giving him a crash course on Jace's habits.

"Don't give him too many fruit snacks, because they're his favorite and he'll keep eating until he makes himself sick. Check his diaper at least once every hour, and make sure you don't pull the tabs too tight when you put a new one on him. Don't let him stand too close to the TV if he's watching something - it's bad for his eyes, and he might try to pull the screen down on himself. Here, give me your phone, and I'll put my number on speed-dial . . . ."

"Kurt," Blaine interrupted, giving his shoulder a gentle shake. "Seriously, we'll be okay. I'll be very, very careful with him. Go enjoy yourself." He held out his arms.

Kurt reluctantly handed Jace over, his eyes a little damp. "Please, _please _look after him, Blaine. Don't be afraid to call me; I can turn around and come back anytime along the way."

He reached out and hugged Kurt with his free arm. "I swear I'll look after him. You have to trust me."

Kurt pulled back and nodded, wiping his nose discreetly. "Okay," he said, sounding uncharacteristically meek. "I'll just . . . I'll just go then. Remember, you can call me, and I'll come right home."

Jace whined a bit when Kurt disappeared, the car headlights flashing against the windows; he pushed against Blaine's chest, wanting to be let down, and Blaine was able to lead him over to his toybox, where they uncovered a bag of blocks.

He was distracted by the brightly-colored blocks, watching avidly as Blaine constructed a bridge. Jace joined him willingly, adding his own blocks in some unidentifiable pattern and chattering as it got taller and taller. Blaine picked out some of the blocks, asking Jace to name the colors like he'd seen Kurt do a few times. Jace's answers were somewhat garbled to Blaine's unpracticed ears, but he seemed wholly absorbed in the activity.

It was going well, Blaine decided as they knocked down the bridge together. Maybe Kurt could have more time away without any problems.

Half an hour later, Jace began to ask for Daddy.

Blaine tried more distractions at first: he sang a few nursery rhymes, he offered up some healthy fruit snacks that Kurt had left in the kitchen, and he brought out Jace's favorite toy, a little plastic tool-bench from his grandpa, but the toddler's demands for Daddy only increased in frequency and then in volume when Kurt didn't appear.

Jace circled the floor with restless distress, peeking in the kitchen and the hallway and growing more and more upset as Blaine tried to coax him back into the living room.

"Do you want to watch something?" Blaine half-asked, half-begged, crouching next to Jace, who had thrown himself on the floor - which was carpeted, thank God. "How about Wonder Pets? I know you love Wonder Pets."

"Want _Daddy_!" The little boy scowled at Blaine and then burst into sudden tears.

"No, no, no," Blaine pleaded, reaching out for him. "No, it's okay, I promise. Daddy will be back, okay?"

"Daddy?" Jace sniffled, looking hopefully at him and then at the front door.

Kurt was almost an hour away. "I - not now, Jace, I'm sorry. But let's do something fun while we wait, huh?"

Jace started to scream.

Fifteen minutes later, Blaine was on the verge of tears himself. Everything he tried to appease the crying toddler failed. He turned on the television, but Jace wouldn't even look at it. He kept trying to pick Jace up off the rug to comfort him, but the boy shoved his hands away angrily. He began to sing again, but Jace only shrieked more loudly.

The kid had been sobbing nonstop for a quarter of an hour - his face was tomato-red and he was making odd, breathless little hitching sounds - and Blaine was panicking. Finally, he pulled out his phone in defeat to call Kurt, cursing his own ineptitude, but at the last minute, he dialed Carole instead.

"Hello, you've reached Lima Regional Clinic Pediatrics Ward, this is Carole Hudson-Hummel," Carole's cheerful voice announced. "How many I assist you?"

"Hi, are you busy? I know you're at work, but it's Blaine. I . . . Jace is . . . help?"

There was a moment of bewildered silence, except for Jace's omnipresent shrieking.

"Is he throwing a tantrum?" Carole asked, sounding both sympathetic and somewhat amused.

"Yes!" Blaine hissed. "He wants Kurt and he's been crying forever and he's all red and he won't let me pick him up. He's _mad_ at me," he added, a little pathetically.

"He's not mad at you, Blaine, he's mad at Kurt for leaving so he's taking it out on you," Carole said with perfect patience. "He'll cry himself out eventually, and when he wants comfort, he'll come to you."

"But what do I do until then? He's _miserable_."

"Just sit with him and wait," she said. "I know it's difficult to see them cry like that, but there's nothing you can do. Wait for him to come to you. You're doing just fine, honey."

Blaine closed his eyes against a ridiculous prickle of tears. "Thank you, Carole."

She was right: Jace gradually began to quiet, utterly exhausted, and after a few more plaintive requests for Daddy, he crawled into Blaine's lap and clung tightly to his neck. Blaine cuddled him, doing his best to project comfort and reassurance, wiping his flushed face and giving him water to drink. It only took a minute or two for the poor kid to pass out.

Holding a baby was strange but nice. Jace was heavier than he'd expected, and the way he snuggled so easily in Blaine's arms unfurled a little curl of tenderness inside him. It was very humbling, somehow, to have a child sleep against your shoulder, trusting you completely when they were at their most vulnerable.

He'd always wanted to be a father, all his own daddy issues aside; he'd always wanted a family of his own, a husband, the two children and the picket fence house and all the things he'd been told he shouldn't want to have.

He thought that maybe he could love this child, and not just because he was Kurt's.

Stretching out his cramping legs, Blaine let his head fall back against the couch cushions. He wanted to stand up and actually sit on the sofa, but he was afraid any big movements would wake Jace. He closed his eyes and hummed to himself, letting the minutes tick by.

Barely three hours after Kurt had left, headlights flickered in the window again, and Blaine opened his eyes. Hurried steps pounded up the porch, and then the door creaked open. Kurt stopped abruptly in the threshold, his eyes immediately zeroing in on Jace, and his shoulders slumped forward.

"Kurt, thank God," Blaine sighed.

"It didn't go very well, did it?" Kurt asked with an edge of distress. "Did he cry the whole time?" He crouched down and sat cross-legged next to Blaine on the floor, reaching out for his son.

"Not the whole time," Blaine said evasively. The last thing he wanted was for Kurt to feel guilty. He needed time away, and now that Jace had calmed down, it didn't seem that bad after all. "It was okay. We played some, and he had a snack."

"He has a hard time with separation," Kurt murmured, rubbing one hand up and down the curve of Jace's back. "So do I, I guess. I almost turned the car around twice before I got to Westerville."

Kurt's hair looked nice, still fluffed up in its usual pompadour but cut closer on the sides and back. It made him look younger.

"I like your haircut." Overwhelmed as he was, Blaine didn't have the brain power to stop and consider before he gave into a whim and stroked the shorn, silky hair at the back of Kurt's neck.

Kurt inhaled sharply but didn't pull away, and Blaine impulsively touched his cheek. The skin was still soft and fresh, though rougher than Blaine remembered from late nights and missed moisturizing routines. Kurt froze and then gradually leaned into the touch, letting out a soft sigh, and they stayed that way for a moment.

It was strange, Blaine thought, that even after so many years of love and affection from so many people, Kurt still reacted to a tender gesture as if he didn't know quite what it meant.

He wondered if Emmett had ever noticed that.

"Thank you for watching him, Blaine," Kurt said, pulling back and settling next to him on the floor, extending his long legs out until they were parallel to Blaine's. His feet were still slightly too big for his body, Blaine noted fondly.

"It wasn't a problem. I'd be glad to babysit again. Whenever you need to get out, you can call me."

"No, you've done too much already."

Blaine shook his head, beginning to understand why Carole had insisted on this. "Don't do that. It's never too much for people who love you."

"Don't, Blaine," Kurt said. His hands smoothed across Jace's back, measuring the pace of his steady breathing. "I'm taking care of myself. I left today, didn't I?"

_Only because she forced you to. _"Come on, I don't want to fight." Blaine extended his hands in a placating gesture. "We just want to see you happy."

It was the wrong thing to say. Kurt's eyes flared.

"Happy?" he hissed. "Well, I'm _not_ happy. You want to know why I left New York, Blaine? I did my work and paid my bills and took care of my son and told everyone that I was _happy_. And you know what? I lived that way for two damn years. So I don't want to hear another goddamn word about being _happy_."

Blaine wanted to get up and go - clearly he wasn't doing anything right tonight - but his legs felt frozen to the carpet. "I'm sorry," he stuttered. "I'm sorry, Kurt, I didn't mean to."

Kurt's eyes dropped to the floor; his chin quivered, and for one awful moment, Blaine was sure that he was going to cry. As quickly as it came, he seemed to push the impulse away, glancing back up with a set jaw and hard eyes. "Let's drop it. Thank you for watching Jace."

Blaine started to rise obediently, but a slice of irritation and honest hurt careened right into him, forcing him back down. He was fucking tired of being dismissed. "You're welcome, Kurt," he said coldly, "and I'd love it if you'd stop lashing out at me because you're angry at someone else. I'm not a target, and we're not in high school anymore."

Kurt blinked a few times and then rubbed his eyes tiredly. "I can't talk right now. I can't."

"See you at the Lima Bean on Sunday," Blaine said brusquely, picking himself up. Kurt's hand stopped him, curling around his palm in an implicit apology. It wasn't much, but just as he always had - despite himself - Blaine readily squeezed it back.


	8. The Tides Change, and We Roll Along

_A/N: Wow, sorry for the long wait - finals are over, and I'm home on holiday, so I should be able to get the next chapter up more promptly. Thanks to all of you for reading and favoriting/subscribing/reviewing!_

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><p><strong>Chapter Seven: The Tides Change, and We Roll Along<strong>

_December 2020_

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><p>"Blaine, hon!"<p>

Balancing three overfilled shopping bags precariously on his hip, Blaine shut his car door and turned around to wave at Hazel, who was refilling the bird feeder behind the building.

"You seem cheery today," she observed as he crunched his way up the snow-sheathed walk. "Out Christmas shopping?"

Blaine nodded, tugging at his scarf and enjoying the slight sting of the wind against his chilled red cheeks. Winter weather was the best. "I found a few things on sale. Have you gone out yet?"

"Not yet," Hazel said placidly. "I make most of my gifts these days." She sprinkled the leftover seed on the ground below the feeder with stiff, heavy-gloved hands. Her puffy coat and stocking cap nearly swallowed her whole. "It's nice to see you looking chipper again, Blaine."

"I feel, ah, chipper too," he said, smiling. "Christmas is my favorite holiday." His right hand was going numb, so he switched the heaviest bag into his left. "I'm decorating the tree this afternoon. Would you like to join me? I've been thinking of putting on some apple cider and carols and making a day of it."

Hazel looked genuinely regretful. "I'm sorry, hon, George is taking me out to spend the weekend with the grandkids in Akron. I'll gladly sit down for a cup with you when I get back, though. I'll bring some gingerbread too."

Blaine bid her goodbye and toted his stash up the two flights to his apartment. Humming happily, he blasted his Christmas playlist and tore into his storage closet to find the large rubbermaid labeled _Christmas Stuff_. After a few minutes, he found it under his record collection and sat on the living room floor to open it up, singing loudly along with his iPod.

The artificial pine was already in its place of honor next to the sofa - it was small, barely as tall as he was, but there wasn't room for anything much bigger. No sooner had Blaine pulled out the first box of ornaments than his doorbell buzzed.

Brushing stray tinsel off his jeans, Blaine hurried to the door, wondering if his mother had decided to swing by on her way home from work. She hadn't called, though, which was unusual for her.

"Coming," he called, unlocking the chain and swinging the door wide.

Kurt smiled at him tentatively, a grocery bag in one hand and Jace clinging to the other. "Hi."

"Kurt?" he managed, torn between delight and anxiety as he thought of the dirty dishes piled in the sink and the dusty floors and the stack of books that were strewn all over the piano bench. "Um . . . wow. Please, come in. I didn't expect to see you here."

Kurt's smile faltered, and he took a hesitant step backwards. "Oh, I - I'm sorry, I should have asked first. I didn't mean to barge in. I'll come back another time."

"No, no!" Blaine hurriedly ushered him in, ruffling Jace's hair as he passed. "I'm always glad to see you guys; it's no trouble at all." Kurt still didn't look convinced, so he added, "It's just that the house is a complete dump today. I would have cleaned up after myself a little if I'd known I was having company."

That finally took the strained edge out of Kurt's expression. "I saw your college dorm room, Blaine - I don't think anything can compare to that."

Blaine laughed as he shut the door, remembering. He'd gone a little crazy, that year away from home, and the military-strict cleanliness of his childhood bedroom had been one of the first things to go. As bizarre as it seemed now, he'd deliberately left dirty clothes on the floor just because he could.

"I'm glad you're here, actually," he said, taking the diaper bag from Kurt and setting it safely on the table. "I was just about to put up all my Christmas decorations. I could use some help."

"I'd love to help. Dad still hasn't gotten around to finding a tree for us." Kurt paused as his son wriggled right out of his arms, steering straight for Blaine to give his legs a hug.

Blaine struggled to hide his delight at the gesture. "Do you want to help Uncle Blaine with his Christmas tree too?"

Jace released him and stepped back, beaming, fingers firmly planted between his lips.

"Can you say hi to Blaine?" Kurt prompted.

Jace removed his fingers. "Hi, I'm Jace. What's your name?"

Blaine stared.

"Oh god, I know," Kurt chuckled. "He's been doing that nonstop all week."

"Wow, that was really clear. A bit uncanny, actually." He grinned at Jace, who was now playing with the threads of his father's long scarf, tugging at the strings intently. "Nice job, peanut."

Jace glanced up at the sound of Blaine's voice and smiled shyly.

"I think he's starting to get sentences," Kurt bragged, unabashedly proud. "He asked Dad if he could watch Wonder Pets loud and clear this morning." Something a bit wistful swept through his smile. "He'll be two and a half next month, you know."

"Time passes too quickly." He cleared his throat. "So what brings you to Westerville anyway?"

Jace wandered off, pausing at the bookcase, and Blaine felt a moment's nervousness, afraid that he would reach out and pull the books down onto himself. His apartment wasn't exactly kid-proof.

Much to his relief, Jace pivoted around and danced back to Kurt's side, nuzzling his face into his dad's leg. "We played at the park and then went shopping here in Westerville," Kurt said, reaching down to straighten Jace's collar. "Dad suggested it, though I think he just wanted to get us out of the house," he added wryly. "In any case, I finally wore him out, so he shouldn't be any trouble for you today."

"He could never be any trouble. Here, I have all the stuff out in the living room ready to be put up."

"Oh, one thing first. Where's your bathroom?"

"Down the hall, second door to the right."

"Thanks. I'll be right back," Kurt promised. "Jace, honey, stay with Blaine for a minute, okay? Daddy will be back." He whisked down the hall, leaving the two of them in the kitchen.

For a moment, Jace looked as though he wanted to follow Kurt, and Blaine hurried to intercept him.

"Hey, peanut," he said, gently drawing Jace back into the kitchen, "why don't we find something to do until Daddy comes back, huh?" His eyes darted around the tiny kitchen as he searched for inspiration, pausing at the refrigerator.

In his travels overseas, his brother often collected little souvenirs, and he'd gotten in the habit of sending Blaine touristy magnets - cheap things that made Blaine laugh and groan at the sheer, shameless tackiness. Holding Jace's hand, Blaine led him over to the fridge, quickly choosing a dozen of the larger, less breakable ones and sliding them down to Jace's height.

Jace caught on very quickly, arranging them in all different shapes, seemingly fascinated by the way they stuck to the fridge; Blaine helped him sort them by color, then by size. He was impressed by how well Jace followed his example - he was a smart little cookie.

Caught up in their game, Blaine didn't notice that Kurt had returned until he heard the table creak as Kurt leaned against it. He twisted around, expecting some teasing comment, but Kurt's expression gave him pause.

"Are you okay?" He wanted to go over to him, but Jace had decided to use Blaine's thigh as a chair and didn't seem eager to move any time soon.

Kurt blinked and then shook his head a bit, as if to clear it. "I'm fine." He straightened and walked over to the table, picking up his grocery sack. "Are you sure we're not imposing on you? I know we just crashed in on you without warning, so believe me, I won't mind if you don't want to today."

It took a little more convincing, but Kurt finally relaxed, and the three of them played with the magnets a bit more until Jace's attention wandered.

Kurt diligently weeded through the box of ornaments, finding a few indestructible ones for Jace to hang. "I would suggest that you put all the very delicate ones up near the top," he said, watching his son examine the branches curiously. "He broke one of my grandmother's wooden reindeer last year and gave himself a splinter, and the extraction process is not something I like to remember."

Blaine laughed at the look on Kurt's face. "That bad?"

"He screamed so loudly that I was sure the neighbors would call the police. He has a powerful set of lungs."

"Like his daddy," Blaine teased.

Kurt tossed a stocking at him.

"Pretty!" Jace exclaimed, his head halfway in the rubbermaid - he emerged from it with a ratty string of tinsel clutched in his fist. "Look at the pretty, Daddy."

Blaine obligingly showed him how to make a boa, tossing the blue and silver one over his shoulders, and the two of them paraded across the living room. Kurt rolled his eyes but couldn't seem to stop himself from smiling, snapping a few pictures on his phone and threatening to post them online.

They gradually trimmed the tree under Kurt's artistic supervision, Blaine's spirits rising with every new addition. It was wonderful to have someone to do this with, as much as he usually enjoyed it alone anyway. A few years ago, he'd been in the habit of having friends over for a decorating party, but so many of them had moved from the area, he'd eventually had to drop the tradition altogether.

Jace was beginning to get sleepy, so Kurt propped him on his hip and let him watch as he set up the candle display on the bookshelf while Blaine made a pot of spiced cocoa on the stove.

"I hope we haven't taken your only day off," Kurt remarked abruptly, as if the thought had only just occurred to him. "I'm sorry - I'm so used to working on my own schedule that I forget that it isn't the case for everyone else."

"Don't worry, I have the entire week," Blaine said. He shaved another slab of chocolate and added it to the pan. "I usually get my vacation time over the holidays. It's nice to get away from the office once and a while."

Kurt twisted around to look at him. "You hate it, don't you?"

"I don't hate it," Blaine hedged. "It pays well, and it's a miracle to get a steady job in this economy."

"You don't love it either."

"No," he admitted. "But what else am I supposed to do? I can't go back to college now." Opening the next book, he found the silver glass bulbs that his grandmother had given him the year before she died. Carefully, he threaded a hook through the first one and placed on a high branch. "I have enough savings to help with groceries and rent, but the college loans are pretty steep, and I won't have them paid off completely for another three years."

Measuring it out carefully, Kurt spooned a layer of snow powder into the bottom of the candle dish. "If you could go back - if the money wasn't an issue - what would you do?"

The answer bubbled up immediately. "Music."

"Really? Like Broadway?"

"Oh no, not that. I didn't mean - well, maybe this is stupid, but I always thought it would be fun to teach it."

"A choir director?"

Blaine shuffled his feet, embarrassed without knowing quite why. "Something like that. Maybe in a school, or a college."

Kurt was quiet for a moment, contemplative. "It's not stupid at all," he said, twisting the candlesticks into place before straightening the wicks. "You'd be a wonderful teacher. I've seen how you are with kids, how you are with Jace."

Blaine felt himself flush with pleasure. Kurt wasn't in the habit of tossing out compliments idly; if he said it, it was generally true. "Thank you."

"There's nothing wrong with wanting to go back to school," he added. "Lots of people do, and you've never had any trouble keeping up."

"True." It wasn't, really, because he had responsibilities here that couldn't just be tossed aside, no matter what he wanted. But it was nice of Kurt to say so anyway. "Thank you."

Kurt squeezed his hand, dusting his wrist with white glitter, but Blaine didn't mind.

When the cocoa was done, they settled on the carpet, backs propped up against the couch like a protective fence for Jace, who was now sleeping soundly on the cushions. The hot mugs warmed their hands, and Blaine was enjoying the stillness, the comfort of having other people share his private space.

It would be far too easy to get used to this.

"Have you finished all your Christmas shopping yet?" Kurt asked, stretching his legs out in front of him. "I still have to finish the blouse for Carole."

"Are you making everything yourself this year?" Blaine's thoughts flitted briefly to the shopping bags hidden in the back of his bedroom closet. At first, he'd struggled over what he wanted to get Kurt, but Camilla had suggested expanding his search to a craft outlet in Columbus. He had ended up having to make a conscious effort not to buy out the entire fabric section. There was a gorgeous royal blue cotton blend that he was sure that Kurt would love . . . .

"I am. It's a personal touch, I suppose."

They drifted back into comfortable silence.

Kurt's expression was enigmatic, thoughtful. He took a long sip from his chipped blue mug, letting it rest against his lips as he inhaled the spicy steam. "Blaine?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm sorry for what I said to you that night."

Blaine stiffened, his mind immediately darting back to the evening that Kurt had showed up at his dorm room, pallid and shaky but so horribly determined. _This is the best thing for both of us, Blaine. I don't want to lose you, but I will if we keep going on like this . . . . It's safer to be friends. _"What do you mean?" he croaked.

"When we fought after you babysat for me the first time," Kurt said, looking mildly surprised. "We never sat down and discussed it."

Oh. That was true too. They'd gone for coffee as usual, exchanged a few awkward looks, and then moved right along without a word about that little blow-up. "It's okay."

"No, it's really not. You were right, you know, what you said about me taking things out on you. I did that a lot . . . _after_." There was only the slightest hesitation in his voice. "I've been thinking about it lately. I was so angry for such a long time. Maybe I still am."

"That's natural," Blaine said, feeling very out of his element.

"Perhaps. But it still damages relationships, hurts people. You should have heard what I said to my father after it happened. I was horrible to him, and he was only trying to help."

Blaine was at a loss. "I'm sure he understood. Was he with you, then . . . after?"

Kurt's fingers drifted nervously around the edge of his cup. "I don't know what I would have done without Dad that first month, to be honest. He let Finn run the shop, and he flew up to New York and stayed with us for an entire month, which was a godsend. Jace was so little and he needed so much attention, and I could hardly get out of bed some mornings." He stopped, snapping his lips shut and looking as though he regretted saying so much. "He couldn't stay forever, of course."

Blaine felt a heavy tug in his stomach, thinking of Kurt alone in the city with a dead partner and a five month-old baby. "I wish - I wish I had been there. To help. I thought about it," he confessed. It had driven him a bit crazy then, wondering how Kurt was coping but unable to bring himself to pick up the phone. "I didn't know if you'd want me there."

"I wouldn't have," Kurt said, blunt but not unkind.

"That's okay." Blaine waited for him to say something, to say more, but he was resolutely quiet, and Blaine knew that he wouldn't tell him anything else, and he felt something between frustration and sheer relief.

They lapsed into silence again, though Blaine couldn't stop himself from stealing small glances - Kurt looked striking in the low, multi-colored light of the Christmas tree; it brought out the shine in his hair and highlighted the sensuous curves of his cheekbones and jaw. But his eyes were dark, unreadable.

He wanted so badly to reach over and sling his arms around Kurt's shoulders that it was almost a physical ache to keep his distance. It had taken a long time for Kurt to get comfortable with him, and now absence, time, and loss had eroded away their progress. But he wanted it to be the way it had been back then.

"I'm glad I came tonight," Kurt said, apropos of nothing. "I almost didn't. Thank you for letting us spend the day with you." One side of his mouth quirked up slowly. "Your Christmas fanaticism has always been difficult to resist."

The affection that Blaine felt in that moment was overpowering, and he let his head drop gently onto Kurt's shoulder. Kurt tensed for just a moment before resting his cheek against Blaine's hair, sighing softly.

_I think I still love you_, Blaine wanted to say.

"It's nice to have you, Kurt," he said instead. "You can stop by anytime. You'll always - you'll always be welcome here."

* * *

><p><em>To: Kurt <em>

_From: Ms. Rachel Barbra Berry_

_Re: Happy Hanukkah!_

_My dearest Kurt,_

_Thank you for the holiday wishes and the lovely sweater! I was quite sad this year to be without you for our annual Manischewitz and Karaoke Party, but expect a package at your door within the next week, as I was able to commandeer a bottle for you! No thanks necessary. _

_I trust that you and your family are doing well? I find myself very busy these last few weeks, as our run of _My Fair Lady_ has been extended an extra week due to some particularly excellent reviews, which I have attached for your perusal. I have also recorded a new song which I thought you might wish to hear, as it is a new favorite of mine; I included it as an mp3 in this email, and I would be more than happy to mail you a CD if you prefer. _

_As for my personal life, I will give you a call soon and tell you all about it, as my news is too great for an impersonal revelation through the cold medium of the written word, but rest assured that I will reveal all. So you don't wilt away from the suspense, I will simply say that I have, at long last, met my one true, grand passion, and I eagerly anticipate the songwriting opportunities that will come with this affair._

_But that is all for another time. How is your sweet son? I hope that you have taken my advice and have begun the search for a suitable vocal instructor. I realize that this is a tall order in Ohio, but you must begin early if you want to develop Jace's talents to the utmost. My dads gave me my first vocal lessons when I was a mere six months old. You can never get started too soon if you want to give him a competitive edge. . . . ._

"Something funny, kid?"

Kurt clicked out of his email and shut the browser window, leaning back in his chair with a sigh. "Just an email from Rachel, Dad."

Burt nodded as if that explained everything. Which it did, actually. "You gonna head upstairs soon?" He shuffled through his papers and tapped his pen impatiently on the desktop. "It's almost eleven."

"I think so, yes. You should get some rest too, Dad. Those reports can wait until the morning, can't they? You've been looking tired lately, and you know Dr. Gupta said-"

"Yeah, I know what Dr. Gupta said," Burt interrupted brusquely. "Carole's been nagging me enough, Kurt. I'll finish up soon." He scrubbed one hand against the back of his neck with a pained grunt. "Is the squirt in bed yet?"

"Fast asleep," Kurt assured him. He opened the top cabinet and shuffled through the rows of bottles - too many bottles - for the box of Advil. He found it in the back corner, and he tipped a blue capsule into his hand and set it in front of his father with a glass of water.

Burt gave him a measured look but took the pill anyway.

"I'll take Jace out tomorrow if it isn't too cold," Kurt told him, whisking away the empty glass and giving it a quick rinse. "Do you need me to pick anything up for you?"

"Nah. Me and Carole gotta pick up the Christmas ham, though. Might need two if Finn and Joss and all of her family are coming." He pinched at the bridge of his nose and glanced up at Kurt. "You inviting Blaine over too?"

"I asked, but he said he was driving to Michigan to spend the holidays with his grandmother. She's not well, so he wants to spend some time with her."

Burt made a noncommittal noise. "Well, if he's back by New Year's, tell him he's welcome to stop by for Carole's big shindig."

"Please don't ever say 'shindig' again." Kurt bent down to kiss his dad's cheek with a faint smack. "Goodnight."

"'Night, kiddo."

Kurt shut down the computer and dragged himself upstairs, tiptoeing past the couch where Carole was sprawled out, exhausted from her shift.

It had been a tiring day for all of them. Jace was especially hyper all day, Dimly aware that it was Christmas, he had been in a constant state of excitement for about a week, asking several times a day about the small stack of brightly-wrapped presents. (Kurt had already had to reseal a number of packages slit open by curious little fingers.)

His father had been at the garage nearly all day, and Carole had picked up a few extra hours at work, so Kurt had spent his time chasing Jace all over the house. He'd intended to bake a little or clean the upstairs, but he'd ended up having a Matchbox car race on the kitchen floor, and the chores had never gotten done.

He'd gotten out once, at least. When she finished up at work, Carole had offered to watch Jace for the evening so he could take some time for himself, but Kurt hadn't been gone a full hour before he returned with a handful of grocery bags. She had given him a look and said – rather impertinently, in Kurt's opinion – that it wasn't what she'd meant, but she let it go regardless, and they had spent the evening watching some mindless Hallmark special together. It wasn't to his taste, as the acting was laughable, the dialogue stilted, and the power of Baby Jesus predictably swooped in to save the day as per usual, but he kept his opinions to himself for Carole's sake – her guilt-tripping prowess was remarkable, and it was Christmas besides.

It was best this way, though - best to keep so busy that he didn't have time to dwell on things. Christmas was always a sore point, but he didn't want to spoil the holiday for his family. If he could just make it through this month, it would be easier again, and he spent so much time _not _thinking about certain things that it had almost become second nature anyway.

So now a hot shower and some moisturizing were on his agenda, but he peeked in Jace's room first.

Fortunately, Jace had finally settled down enough to sleep in his own bed in a large, walk-in storage closet that Kurt had converted into a bedroom. The nights were far more restful for Kurt now, and as much comfort as his son's presence usually brought him, it had begun to feel a bit claustrophobic. He needed his own private space, and the adjoining bedroom worked very well; it was close enough that Kurt could hear him crying if he needed something yet far enough removed that he didn't feel so overwhelmed.

Jace was sleeping soundly, one finger in his mouth, his panda bear nightlight casting a faint yellow glow on his hair. Kurt bent down and kissed his forehead, murmuring a soft _I love you_ and rearranging his blanket. Checking once more that everything was in order, he locked the safety gate in place and left the door slightly ajar.

In his room, he gathered up a stray basket of laundry and began to fold it as quickly as he could, eager to get cleaned up and in bed. It was strange how age made sleep so much more appealing - he'd much rather nap than shop these days. The thought made him grimace, and he reminded himself that he was in his twenties, not his eighties.

Grabbing a fresh towel from the pile, he slipped into the bathroom and turned on the tap before undressing quickly, shivering a bit as he waited for the steam to fill the room.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the full-length mirror and frowned, pinching at the too-sharp points of his hips and ribs. His body looked a little better than it had when he first arrived - three healthy, balanced meals a day tended to help - but he knew he still had some progress to make if he wanted to get back his previous muscle tone. Turning away from his reflection, he climbed into the shower, whisking the curtain shut to block the mirror from his sight.

The hot water felt glorious, and Kurt stood lazily under the spray with his face uplifted, letting the stream pound down on him. Scrubbing on shampoo and conditioner and body wash took only a few minutes, and he knew he ought to get out and go to sleep, but he didn't want to move. He was feeling a bit antsy, and when a familiar heaviness began to creep into his stomach, he made an impulsive decision and soaped up his hands.

He was already half-hard, and he groaned quietly as he fisted himself and started a loose, gentle rhythm, the pleasant pressure beginning to build at the base of his spine.

Running the knuckles of his other hand down his stomach, he let himself get caught up in the simple pleasure of warm skin, feeling how smoothly it slipped over the pads of his fingers. He plucked lightly at the dusting of brown curls at the apex of his thighs and then slid back up to pinch at his nipples, carefully digging in a nail or two just for that slight sting.

Leaning forward, he rested his head against his arm, letting his hand move in a senseless rhythm, teasing and changing pace on a whim. As pressed for time as he usually was, rubbing one out in the shower was often a joyless sort of thing to take the edge off. He rarely had the leisure to enjoy it - the small collection of toys that he still kept hidden under his bed hadn't been used in ages. The tingling began to intensify, and he imagined the feel of a solid body behind him, strong and hard and pressing in close to him.

It was easier this way, from the back, because he didn't have to picture a face.

The hands that slid around his hips, raking blunt nails up and down his thighs, were bronze and dusted with dark hair at the wrists and knuckles. Kurt muffled a moan against his arm, moving his fingers faster as he pictured those hands dipping down between his legs.

He imagined a mouth plastered hot against his neck, nipping, caressing, lips parted with panting excitement. A sturdy arm held him firmly, pressing him back against warmth and skin and the scratch of chest hair. "Oh God," he whimpered, feeling a familiar tingle beginning to peak shamefully quickly – it had been far, _far_ too long since he'd done this.

The sensation built and built until he sank his teeth into his wrist to quiet himself as he came hard, cock jerking in his fist as his lover shook and groaned behind him.

Breathless, he let the spasms roll through him as he tipped his head back, aching for a kiss, for something, and, for the first time, he looked over his shoulder. A pair of brown eyes looked steadily back.

_Blaine._

Ice splintered in Kurt's stomach, the post-orgasm haze vanishing with a shock that left him feeling faintly dizzy. Sinking down onto the rim of the tub, he covered his eyes and tried to calm his uneven breathing. The water beat down on his head, dripping off his hair and into his face.

_Goddammit._

Something tight and painful was winding up in his chest, and he dug his fingers into his forehead until the nerves leapt in protest.

He thought he'd gotten over it. He thought he'd moved past the hang-up that told him he was cheating on Emmett – on Emmett's memory - when he began to want sex again. It had taken months for him to touch himself without getting caught up in the grief all over again. He'd come to some kind of peace with the idea of finding satisfaction with nameless, formless fantasies in the privacy of the shower or alone at night when no one else was around to see his weakness.

But this was different. He had a face. He had _Blaine's_ face.

Kurt stepped out of the shower with stinging eyes, toweling off vigorously, violently, before stuffing himself into his pajamas, diligently avoiding the mirror. He couldn't stand being naked a second longer. It felt too much like shame.

He wouldn't think about it. It didn't mean anything. He would go to bed and sleep whatever madness this was completely off, and then he'd get up in the morning and it would be fine. It had to be.

It took him a long time to fall asleep.


	9. Fracture

_A/N: This chapter is angst, angst, angst, but I'll try to post the next one by Friday so you don't have to wait too long. :) Thanks to all of you for reading and favoriting/subscribing/reviewing!_

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><p><strong>Chapter Eight: Fracture<strong>

_January 2021_

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><p>Humming quietly to himself, Blaine flicked on his blinker light, waiting impatiently for the car in front of him to pull away from the stop sign. A glance at his dashboard clock reassured him that it was only just noon - surely Kurt would be at home. He always made lunch for Jace promptly at twelve-thirty.<p>

Pulling up in the driveway, he noticed that Carole's car was gone, but the Navigator was faintly visible from the garage window. Wondering again whether he ought to have called first, Blaine killed the engine and walked up to the porch, bouncing a little on his toes as he rang the doorbell.

The door opened after a minute; Carole stood in the threshold, wrapped in a thick knit wrap against the chill outside. She blinked in surprise and then stepped aside to let him in. "Blaine, come in - I just made a fresh pot of Darjeeling." She sounded strange, maybe a bit congested, and her eyes were red.

He followed her into the kitchen after shedding his damp coat and snow-crusted shoes. The table was scattered with envelopes and what looked like a stack of bills. "Is Kurt -?"

"Kurt's not here, hon," Carole told him. "You just missed him. He took Jace and went to meet someone for lunch, an old friend of his."

Blaine struggled to tamp down sudden, irrational alarm. "Oh?"

"Yes, she called this morning. She used to be in your glee club - what was her name? Santana?"

"Oh - oh! I see. Yeah, I knew she was in town, though I didn't think she'd stay this long. Her grandma's sick." He hesitated. "I've interrupted your work; I can go. Please tell Kurt that I'll catch up with him another day."

"Don't be ridiculous," she said, pulling out a chair. "You've just driven an hour, you might as well stay and have supper with us. Kurt should be back soon - Jace will have to be put down for a nap by two. Besides, I'd like your company. I haven't seen a soul all morning."

Blaine sat down gratefully, noticing the box of tissues and cough syrup sitting on the table next to the papers. "Are you not feeling well?"

She flapped a dismissive hand. "Just a cold. Don't worry, I won't sneeze on you."

He chuckled, and she sat back in her chair to sort through the stack of bills, sighing a little as she recorded the numbers in a battered ledger. "So," she said, not looking up from her work, "what brings you here at this hour? Did you get the day off?"

"Yeah. Dad closed up early today because he hired some cleaning service to fix up the office a bit - you know, shampoo the carpets and scrub the walls down and all that. So I thought I'd surprise Kurt and take him and Jace out to lunch."

"That's very sweet of you."

Blaine shrugged, his cheeks pinking. "It's my pleasure."

Carole set her pen down carefully and looked at him, still smiling but a little sharp-eyed. "I can see that." She paused, and he felt a twinge of uneasiness. "Blaine," she began slowly, "please don't take this the wrong way, but you seem to be over here quite a bit. It's not a complaint - we love having you, we always have. But . . . you and Kurt, you two - you two are together a lot these days."

"I missed him. We were always good friends." Blaine winced at his own defensiveness.

"Of course," she said diplomatically. "I know he missed you." She reached for a tissue and swiped discreetly at her reddened nose before continuing, "Jace seems to like you."

"I like him too," he replied uncertainly, trying to figure out where she was going with this. "He's a good kid."

She hesitated again. "Kurt needs his friends."

Blaine decided that he was done circling around whatever this was. "Carole, please just say what you want to say."

"He only lost his partner two years ago," Carole said simply. "Maybe that sounds like a long time to you, but these things don't have a set schedule. You don't just decide one day to close the door on your past and forget it forever. It takes time, lots of time, and if you're hoping . . . ."

"I'm not," Blaine protested.

Carole gazed at him steadily, and he had to look away. "I'm overstepping," she said at last. "I'm sorry. You're both adults. It's hard to remember that sometimes, as a parent."

"It's fine," he said, but it wasn't. He wanted to be irritated with her for putting her nose in his private business, but instead he just felt chastened, embarrassed, like he was still an overly earnest, fumbling teenager. He may not have experienced death in the same way that Kurt had, that Carole had, but he knew what it was to lose someone you loved.

Sensing the awkwardness in the room, Carole stood up and poured them both a mug of the tea, sweetening it with liberally with honey.

"Well," she drawled, setting one cup in front of him, "did you have a good Christmas? Kurt mentioned that you spent it with your grandmother; I hope she's doing better?"

Blaine latched onto the topic gladly, and they chatted easily enough, though the air between them was frosted with lingering discomfort. They were on their second cup of tea when the front door creaked open.

"Carole?"

"In here!" she called. "You have a visitor."

Kurt rounded the corner - Jace sleeping in his arms - and Blaine felt a frisson of delight as Kurt's face brightened when he spotted them sitting together. "Blaine, I thought that was your car in the driveway. How are you? I didn't expect you today."

"I was going to take you and Peanut out, but it sounds like you've already been to Breadstix once today."

Kurt's smile became a bit wooden. "I think I've had enough of those awful breadsticks for a while." His eyes flew over to the pot on the stove. "Is that Darjeeling?"

There was an ungainly pause. Carole got up, reaching for another tissue. "Why don't I put Jace down in his bed, and you can get your tea?" She washed her hands at the sink and then reached for her grandson, who didn't so much as stir when she hoisted him up on her shoulder. "I'll be right back, boys."

Blaine watched her leave and then took another long sip of his drink, watching Kurt slip out of his coat and gloves and lay them over the back of his chair.

"I hope I didn't keep you waiting long," Kurt said, heading over to the oven.

"It was fine. Carole and I had a nice conversation, and it was my fault for not calling ahead anyway. Did you have a good dinner with Santana?"

"Hmm?" Kurt seemed flustered, out of sorts. "Yes, I - I don't know. It was nice."

"Kurt?"

"It's nothing. Santana was just . . . Santana." He laughed, but the sound rang false to Blaine's ears. "It was good to see her again."

Blaine felt a bubble of unexpected anger in his chest. "What did she say to you?"

He shook his head curtly, pouring himself a cup of tea. "Nothing I can't handle. It's just who she is. She mostly means well, I think."

Clearly, Kurt wasn't going to tell him, and Blaine forced back the burgeoning frustration. It wasn't fair to expect Kurt to tell him everything, and it shouldn't bother him. It did, though.

"It sounds like you need a night off." Blaine took another sip and then nearly choked when a brilliant idea occurred to him. "Come have dinner with me this week."

"Breadstick overload, remember?" Kurt sighed.

"No, no - come have dinner at my apartment. You've cooked so many meals for me, but I've never paid the favor back."

"It would have to be a little early so Jace could keep his regular bedtime, but yes, if you're sure you want to go to the trouble - that would be wonderful."

Blaine bit his lip, indecisive, and then resolved to be honest. It had been their policy, once. "Kurt, do you think that this time, maybe your parents could babysit for one evening? You know I love Jace, but it would be really nice to have uninterrupted time to talk and enjoy dinner without having to look after someone else."

Kurt's face was a picture of uncertainty and surprise. "I . . . I suppose I could ask." He was quiet, considering it. "It _would_ be nice to have an evening off. It's a lot of ask of you, bringing him with us all the time. I'm sorry."

"No, Kurt, come on. That's not what I'm saying. I don't mind, I swear - I just think it would be fun to have one dinner together. You said Jace was doing well staying for a few hours with your parents, right?"

"I guess that would work. I'll have to ask Carole and Dad first." He smiled tentatively, warming to the idea.

"Ask what?" Carole sniffled, shuffling back through the doorway.

"I'm going to have dinner with Blaine at his place this week. Would you and Dad mind watching Jace for a night?"

Blaine expected an eager response, given how determined Kurt's parents had been to get him out of the house and away from the stress of his responsibilities.

Carole, much to his astonishment, looked unenthused. "That's . . . nice." The concern in her voice was hard to miss, as much as she tried to conceal it. Seeming to recollect herself, she quickly added, "Your dad and I would be happy to. When were you thinking?"

The plan was quickly hashed out, and Kurt and Blaine agreed on Thursday night at six. Blaine was consumed with a flurry of excited plans; he had to come up with a good menu, and he needed to clean up the apartment, maybe rent some movies . . . .

Distracted with a new to-do list, Blaine didn't stay much longer, begging off to get a head start. Bidding goodbye to Kurt, he shrugged into his coat and dug for his keys, heading out the door, but he was stopped on the front steps by Carole's voice calling after him.

"Blaine, just a minute, please." Carole shut the door lightly behind her, tugging her wrap closer. "I want to apologize if I made you uncomfortable."

Blaine had already forgiven her for any prying. "Really, it's okay. I understand."

She seemed doubtful, but she drew him into a brief hug, whispered in his ear, and then vanished back into the house. Blaine stood there on the porch for a startled moment, turning her parting words over and over in his mind.

_Don't get yourself hurt. _

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><p>Grocery bags in hand, Kurt climbed the stairs to Blaine's apartment and pulled the knocker. Barely a second passed before the door swung wide - Blaine was beaming, dishtowel in hand and an apron tied over his forest-green dress shirt and black pants.<p>

"Kurt! Come in, come in. I was just starting the pasta."

Kurt set his grocery bag on the table. "I brought cherry cheesecake. I know it's your favorite."

Blaine made an eager sound that Kurt couldn't help but laugh at. "Can we have that first?"

"Cheesecake is dessert, Blaine. You wouldn't want to do this improperly, right? Besides, the anticipation makes it sweeter." Kurt surveyed the ingredients set out on the counter with an experienced eye. "What can I do to help?"

They worked together, chopping up vegetables for the sauce and boiling water for the noodles. There was something achingly familiar about standing with someone in the kitchen making supper together. It felt . . . homey, comfortable. The marble counter swam before his eyes, morphing into the polished stainless steel of his kitchen back in New York, and the man next to him . . . .

The sound of Blaine's voice startled him out of his reverie. He moved the dishpan so Blaine could strain the pasta over the sink, shaken. He did not want to deal with this tonight.

Kurt forced the incident out of his mind, resolved to enjoy his time with Blaine. He was not going to ruin this too.

The rigatoni was delicious - Blaine had always been excellent with Italian food - and Kurt ate more than he was accustomed to, truly starved for the first time he could remember in months. The conversation was light: Blaine told amusing stories about his coworkers, and Kurt discussed some of his new design ideas, and they complained gleefully about politics.

They shared a glass of elderberry wine with their cheesecake, and Kurt had to make a conscious effort not to watch Blaine as he inhaled his slice, moaning appreciatively in a way that made Kurt edgy. They rinsed the dishes together and decided on a movie. Kurt was feeling pleasantly full and just a tad buzzed, just enough to take away the edge of nervous tension.

As they settled down on the couch, however, Kurt became aware of another kind of tension. Blaine sat close to him, his thigh and shoulder pressed close to Kurt's side, his warmth and scent soaking in and warming Kurt more effectively than the wine had.

Blaine shifted against him, and the feeling grew - Kurt couldn't focus on the television screen, his every nerve ending suddenly attuned to the man next to him. His eyes fell on Blaine's legs, studying the play of muscle under his dress pants - they didn't look quite as toned as they had been in high school, but they were longer. An explosion on the TV tore his attention away, and he forced himself to watch, ashamed of his gawking.

On the screen, the hero was in full action-sequence mode, dodging bullets and plowing through henchmen and random bursts of fire and shattering glass. Kurt could feel Blaine's heartbeat pick up in reaction, and the sound of Blaine's quickened breathing sent a jolt right to his stomach.

Blaine chuckled at something, and Kurt jerked his attention away, only to focus it on Blaine's hand, which was resting on his knee. His eyes were drawn back to Blaine's thigh, and without thinking, he reached out to smooth his hand over it.

Blaine froze and so did Kurt.

Kurt couldn't think of what to do. His fingers tightened, gripping Blaine's leg firmly. The muscle shifted under his palm as Blaine tried to shift and face him, and another spark shot low in his belly.

"Kurt?" Blaine whispered, sounding strained. His adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed thickly, his eyes wide and too dark.

Kurt kissed him.

Just as his foggy brain started to shriek at him, he felt Blaine's hands dig into his arms, pulling him closer as his lips opened invitingly beneath Kurt's. Kurt dipped in hungrily; Blaine whined high in his throat, and it all fell apart.

The next few minutes were a blur of breathless, wet mouths and rustling clothes and bare skin. Somehow, they stumbled down the hall to Blaine's room, nearly tripping on the rug before tumbling onto the sheets. Blaine was hard and hot on top of him, mouthing at his neck, and Kurt couldn't stop touching him. He knew this body - he knew Blaine, he remembered how this had felt, and he was desperate to have that feeling again.

Kurt's hands fluttered across the expanse of Blaine's warm back, savoring the smooth heat.

"You okay?" Blaine murmured against his jaw, his mouth tender and sweet where it curved across Kurt's skin.

Kurt tucked his face into Blaine's neck, nosing into the dark curls that smelled like shampoo and clean sweat. "I missed you," he said. It wasn't what he had meant to say, but Blaine melted into him, his hands suddenly frantic.

They kissed hungrily, and Kurt was overwhelmed with sensation, his thoughts clouded and fractured. He couldn't think of anything but how good Blaine felt under his hands, how tenderly Blaine kissed his chin, how hard Blaine was against his hip.

He'd almost forgotten what this was like, how it felt to have another body curled against his, hot fingers brushing at his thighs with impatient eagerness until Kurt opened his legs. The lid snapped on a bottle of lube, and wet hands rushed in, stroking, pulling, rubbing until his heels were digging into the mattress, heat spiking low in his stomach.

"Is that good?" Blaine murmured, sounding more anxious than sexy.

A rough thumb circled the end of Kurt's cock, making him flop back on the pillows, breathless; his body moved without his permission now, fucking into Blaine's slick palm.

"Please," he gasped, feeling Blaine's fingers loosen and contract around him, keeping him suspended halfway, never quite hard enough, never quite fast enough to . . . "Please, Blaine."

"What? What do you want? Tell me, Kurt."

Kurt let his head fall back on the mattress with a quiet moan. "_Please_." He angled his hips off the bed, stretching muscles that hadn't been used in months, and pumped his hips in time with Blaine's hand, grinding and swiveling, his feet planted firmly on either side of Blaine's thighs. "Oh god."

He lifted his arms sluggishly, digging his nails into the long, hard lines of Blaine's shoulder blades.

Blaine let out a guttural noise, his hand speeding up, shifting until his own cock was pressing against the inside of Kurt's thigh. He began to rock against Kurt, his grip faltering as he struggled to find a rhythm. Kurt grabbed at his shoulders, forcing him to let go.

Blaine sat back on his heels at once, panting, his eyes wide and full of hurt.

"No, no," Kurt rasped, unfolding his legs and rising up to kiss Blaine hard, feeling an initial reluctance until Blaine's hands slipped around his waist, pulling him in close.

"Lube?" he asked softly, turning his face against Blaine's shoulder and mouthing at the damp, salty skin.

After a moment of fumbling, Blaine found it under the pillow, watching with silent hunger as Kurt slicked his cock and his thighs before tossing the tube aside. "This way," he said, opening his arms invitingly.

Blaine didn't need to be told twice; he curled on top of him, kissing him desperately and smearing lube over their stomachs, before pulling back, crouching between Kurt's thighs. Kurt just looked at him - he was gorgeous, his mouth kiss-slick, wet curls over his forehead, his cock red and swollen in a dark tangle of hair.

They moved slowly at first, but it quickened far too soon, both of them over-stimulated; Blaine's cock slid back and forth easily in the groove between Kurt's thigh and hip, and Kurt was rutting up against his stomach, slipping against his hair every so often in a way that sent faint slivers of pain pinching down his spine, heightening the pleasure. Blaine was breathing hard into his ear and making little frantic noises, his muscles shifting and rolling under Kurt's clutching fingers.

Kurt's orgasm took him by surprise. The pressure low in his belly broke open, soaring high and just this edge of painful, quaking through his arms and thighs and chest, spilling hot between their bodies.

Blaine's back bowed as he came - he keened a bit, arms quivering, and sank down against Kurt's chest, his cheek warm and dewy where it rested against Kurt's collarbone.

Feeling boneless and shaky, Kurt rubbed his chin against the top of Blaine's head, breathing deeply and waiting for his muscles to unlock. Blaine's hands coasted lightly along his sides.

Blaine lifted his head, peeping up at him with bright eyes, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Kurt's stomach plummeted.

He sat up, gently urging Blaine to roll onto his side, and skittered from the bed over to the pile of clothes on the floor. He yanked on his underwear and searched for his jeans, feeling far more exposed now than he had been naked. The fogginess was gone - everything had broken open into perfect, horrible clarity.

"Kurt?" Blaine's voice was very deliberately calm, and Kurt didn't dare look at him.

"I have to go," he said flatly. "I need to put Jace to bed."

"You said your father was going to do that. Besides, it's not even six-thirty. Kurt, come on." A note of _something _broke through Blaine's control, and Kurt's throat began to ache. "We can finish the movie. Or go out. There's a nice bar in Columbus."

"I can't, Blaine."

"Kurt . . . ."

"I had a plan!" Kurt hissed, whipping around to face Blaine, who suddenly looked small and too young, tangled up in the sheets. The ache intensified. "I was going to come here and get better and then get the hell away from Lima again. And that plan did _not _-" he shoved his arms through the sleeves of his sweater, for once not caring about fabric damage "- involve sleeping with you."

"You think I planned this?" Blaine demanded, startling Kurt with the force of his anger. "God_dammit_, do you really think I wanted sex if it meant you were going to run away again?"

"I'm not the one who runs!"

"I was a _kid_!" Blaine shouted. "I was a stupid kid who didn't know what he wanted and was too afraid to go after it when he did. And don't you fucking _dare _lay this all on me, Kurt! You ran too - you ran away without me, even when you promised that you wouldn't."

Kurt blinked back a rush of furious tears. "I was a kid too. I never broke a promise. It was mutual, we decided like-"

"Like _adults_," Blaine sneered.

"Yes, like adults." Kurt tugged on his boots, snapping the buckles so hard that they pinched his fingers. "We had to make some hard choices, and we made them together because it was what was best for us. Do you think if we'd stayed together here - do you think that we wouldn't have ended up hating each other, resenting each other? Do you think our relationship could have honestly survived that? Because I don't."

Blaine's eyes narrowed. "I wasn't planning on staying here forever."

"Yes, and I can see how well that panned out," he sniped.

Blaine flinched, visibly gritting his teeth, and Kurt felt a momentary flash of regret.

"I would have gone with you. I would have followed you anywhere."

Kurt spit out a laugh. "And you think that's _healthy?_ That's exactly why we needed to get away from each other. It was too much."

"You don't know that. You don't know how it would have been."

"What did you want me to do, Blaine? Was I supposed to spend my life waiting for you to grow up?" He fumbled for his jacket, tugging it on over his arms, desperate to get out of this apartment.

"No, because it wasn't just me! You had to grow up too, and we could have done it together . . . "

"What does any of this have to do with anything?" Kurt interrupted. "We're not talking about that. It was a horrible mistake, okay? We had sex -" _Oh god, we had sex_ "-and what's done is done. Can we talk this over like adults, or do you want me to join you in your pity party like we're thirteen instead of thirty?"

"Oh, so now I'm immature? I didn't know you made a habit of sleeping with thirteen year olds."

"Shut the fuck up, Blaine!" Kurt zipped up his coat so roughly that he nearly tore it right off. "I don't have to have this discussion with you because my reasons are none of your business."

"Of course it's my business! I love you and you dumped me for some _jackass_ and now you're jerking me around, so yes, it's my _goddamned business!"_

They stared at each other, breathing hard, eyes wild. The silence stretched and deepened, horrible in the way it echoed their own words back to them.

Blaine started to chuckle, pressing his face into the mattress; it was an awful sound, and Kurt's gut twisted.

"Blaine?" he whispered. He didn't dare move toward him, lingering uncertainly by the door.

He shook his head, his hands slipping up to hide his face. "Just . . . just go home."

"We're not thinking right now - maybe tomorrow-"

Blaine swiped at his eyes angrily and rose up from the bed, walking naked over to the bedroom door and opening it with tense, deliberate calmness. He opened his lips, struggled, and then said, "Why did you have sex with me?"

"What?"

"You know why I wanted to. Why did you?"

"I . . . ." Kurt scrabbled for some sort of explanation - it was too much, too fast, and he couldn't think. He couldn't _think_. "I don't know what you want me to say. I've been lonely."

Blaine clenched his teeth so hard Kurt's jaw ached to look at him. "So a warm body will do."

"No, that's not- It's not like that."

"You know what, you're right. You need to get home for Jace."

Kurt reluctantly went out into the hall, stricken, his stomach cramping with the guilty, nauseating feeling that his life was tilting out of control yet again. "Stop being so melodramatic, Blaine," he said coldly. "I wasn't trying to use you. It was a misjudgment, a moment of weakness."

"I'm not Emmett," Blaine choked, and he shut the door in Kurt's face.


	10. INTERLUDE

_A/N: __This little section is just an interlude from Burt's perspective, separate from the main storyline. I'm sorry it's only a time-stamp - please don't tar and feather me for not immediately resolving the big blowout in the last chapter. :) I'll try to have Ch. 9 posted by Tuesday or Wednesday. __Thanks to all of you for reading and favoriting/subscribing/reviewing!_

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><p><strong>Interlude<strong>

_September 2018_

_Lima, Ohio_

* * *

><p>It was barely six in the evening when Burt Hummel was urgently shaken awake from an impromptu nap by his wife.<p>

"Burt!" Carole hissed, tugging insistently on his arm while he struggled to clear the fog from his mind and sit up on the couch. "Burt, wake up!"

"Wha-?" He finally got a good look at her face and felt his insides freeze up when he saw her expression. "What the hell happened?" His bleary eyes focused on the cell phone propped against her ear. "Who is it? What's wrong?" His heart skipped a beat. "Is it Kurt?"

Wordlessly, she nodded, handed him the phone, and sank down on the cushions, gripping his arm so tightly he would have winced if he was alert enough to really notice it. His complete attention - what little of it was there - was centered on the phone. "Hello? Kurt?"

There was a choked noise from the other end.

"Kurt?" Burt repeated, his throat suddenly constricted. A thousand frantic thoughts dashed through his mind, which was growing clearer and more alarmed by the second. "Kiddo, it's me. Tell me what's wrong. Talk to me. You hurt?"

He could hear heavy, unsteady breathing on the other end, but Kurt apparently couldn't find the words. An image of his kid lying injured in some New York back alley somewhere consumed his brain, and he grew impatient. "Kurt, come on, _please_. Is it Jace? Where are you? Where's Emmett?"

A low sob broke through the line. "Home, Dad, I don't - help me. Em's parents - they're here, he's dead."

Burt's immediate reaction was overwhelming relief that Kurt wasn't bleeding out on the street, and then the second half of the rambling speech caught up with him. "Jesus Christ."

Carole's hand bit down like a vise on his arm, and he glanced up at her worried face. His automatic reaction was to reassure her, but he didn't have a damn thing to tell her. Vaguely, he shook his head and hunched over, cupping the phone in both hands as if he could reach through to his kid. "You're sure?" he blurted and then cursed himself. What a dumbass thing to say. Of course Kurt would be sure about something like this.

"Yes. Yes. The police came; they told Sheila." Kurt's choppy breath crackled in the speaker. "They told her. They found him."

"I'm so - wow, kid, I - _god_. Is someone with you and Jace?"

"They're still here," Kurt managed.

"Sheila and Rod?" he clarified, already making travel plans in his head. If he could catch a plane out of Columbus or find some quick connecting flights, he could probably be there by early morning . . . . "Good. I mean, that's good."

There was a long pause. "I need you. _Please_," Kurt said, sounding small and bewildered, and Burt felt it like a sucker punch. He knew how hard it hit you, the realization that someone could be there one minute and gone forever the next and there wasn't a thing you could do to get them back. It probably hadn't sunk in just yet, but it would, and god, Burt did _not_ want him to be alone when it did.

"Of course," he grunted. "Of course, Kurt. I'll be there as soon as I can, the first flight I can find. I swear, okay? You just hang on and stay with Sheila, and I'll be there tomorrow."

Kurt didn't protest. Burt stayed on the phone as long as he could while Carole tapped away at their computer, scouring the web for the earliest flight available. She finally found seats on a four o'clock track the next morning at a price that was goddamn highway robbery, but he told her to book it and rattled off the details to Kurt, hoping that the preparations would give his son something to focus on for a few hours.

Knowing he didn't have much time, he reluctantly hung up, forced to leave Kurt to his sort-of-in-laws' care. Carole trailed after him into the bedroom, watching him drag out his old suitcase and throw clothes haphazardly into it.

"Burt?"

He forced himself to slow down. Running around like a chicken with its head cut off wouldn't help him get to Kurt any faster. Kurt would probably nag him about how it wasn't good for his heart either. "Emmett's dead," he said, grimacing at how the words sounded out in the open air.

Carole's face was a picture of shock. "How?"

"I don't know. Kurt couldn't tell me - we'll know soon enough. It doesn't matter." He tossed in a toothbrush and half-empty roll of toothpaste. "I'll have Finn open the garage for me this week and then see how it goes."

"Should I go with you?" she asked, uncharacteristically uncertain. "I booked another seat. Would he want me there, Burt? I can cancel if he doesn't."

He paused long enough to grasp her hand, and a moment of silent understanding passed between them. "Pack your bags quick. I need to leave some messages at the office and get some papers that Kurt'll need this week, and then I'll stop by the ATM." His thoughts already racing ahead, Burt dug in the closet for his coat and keys. "Can you give Finn a call and see if he'll drive us to Columbus?"

"Done," Carole said resolutely, her phone already out of her pocket.

As quickly as they worked, they barely had the luggage hauled to the door when Finn appeared in the driveway just after midnight and honked. Foregoing the usual lecture about waking the neighbors, Carole went out to enlist him as a bellhop, and then they piled into the car.

Burt sat in the back with Carole while Finn drove. It was unusually quiet without Finn's usual 80s rock blasting from the radio, and Carole kept her hand firmly in his as they watched the deserted roads flash by.

He was trying not to think too much about what Kurt was doing right now, but it was pretty much a useless attempt. Maybe someone had gotten him to lay down and get a little sleep - it helped sometimes, after a big shock. Maybe he was resting now, while he still could.

Burt doubted it.

* * *

><p>The flight was short - only a few hours - but it seemed to stretch out indefinitely. By the time they found their luggage at the claim in JFK, Burt was practically itching to get to Kurt and Emmett's tiny apartment on the outskirts of Soho.<p>

It was two in the morning when he and Carole finally stepped out onto the rain-slick pavement and pushed through the throng of crabby, sleepy-eyed passengers in search of an empty taxi. It took some aggressive moves from Carole, but they finally got their car and gladly left the airport behind.

Their driver wasn't inclined to be chatty, which was nice, as neither he nor Carole felt much like making pointless small talk. Burt dozed off a few times during the drive, too keyed up to sleep long but still exhausted despite the rush of adrenaline that had kept them both going.

When they finally pulled up beside the ancient brownstone building, his relief momentarily overwhelmed his fear for his kid, and he peeled off a stack of bills for their taxi, grabbed the luggage, and hustled up to the door. Someone must have been watching from the window, because they were buzzed right in, and they hurried up the long flight of stairs and down the hall to Apartment 208.

The door swung open before Carole could reach out to knock, and Kurt barreled straight at him like he hadn't done since he was a kid, squeezing him with quiet desperation. Burt wrapped him up, letting his suitcase drop to the ground.

Kurt was silent - no tears this time - but his arms were steady, and he laid his head against Burt's shoulder and clung tight. After a few moments, Carole unobtrusively gathered up the fallen luggage and slipped inside, leaving the two of them alone in the dimly-lit hall.

"I'm so sorry, kiddo," Burt managed, one hand smoothing across Kurt's back; that had always calmed Kurt down when he was a fussy little kid. "You wanna come inside and sit down? I bet you haven't eaten all day."

Kurt pulled back reluctantly, and Burt took quick inventory: swollen eyes, splotchy cheeks, hair mussed by nervous fingers. Feeling the scrutiny, Kurt lifted a hand to swipe uselessly at his ruined pouf, and Burt felt a tiny release of tension at the familiar gesture. He hadn't shut down yet - it was probably still too raw.

"C'mon," he murmured, hugging Kurt close to his side and steering him toward the door as gently as he could. "Let's sit down, okay?"

Inside the swoopy, chrome kitchen, Carole and Emmett's parents were already huddled around the bar island. Rod glanced up at them through thick, smudged glasses and nodded in numb acknowledgment, but Sheila was weeping into a crumpled tissue, clutching Carole's hand.

Burt led Kurt to a chair, but Kurt could only sit for a second before he was up and mumbling a strained apology before he vanished into the living room.

"Where's Jace?" Burt asked, at a bit of a loss. He didn't know the Mulryans all that well, apart from a few holiday gatherings, and he was used to being on the other end of these sorts of conversations. What was someone supposed to say in this situation? He knew how much he'd scorned the insincere condolences and the ever-irritating 'sorry for your loss' in the wake of Elizabeth's funeral. It was safer to skirt the issue altogether for now.

"He's sleeping," Rod said hoarsely, pinching at the bridge of his crooked nose. Sheila moaned low in her throat and broke into a fresh round of sobs.

Leaving the Mulryans in Carole's capable hands, Burt went in search of his son. He found him on the sofa, his chin propped on his hands as he stared at the unlit fireplace. Burt vaguely remembered Kurt gushing about the rustic charm of the fireplace when he and Emmett had first toured the apartment together.

He sank down tentatively on the cushions with a loud creak, feeling big and clumsy. They sat motionless for a while, the sound of muffled wailing and Carole's soft, soothing noises filtering in from the kitchen.

"Dad?"

"I'm here," he said as steadily as he could, an ache rising like bile in his throat.

Kurt's eyes were wide, lost. "What do I do now?"

* * *

><p>That first week was indescribable, passing in a blur of bills and papers and funeral arrangements and flowers and hastily-scribbled sympathy cards.<p>

Emmett had once told Kurt that he'd wanted to be cremated, but Sheila refused to hear of it, insisting on an open casket viewing and a burial. Burt supposed he could understand the desire to keep something tangible even after death, as morbid as it sounded. Losing Elizabeth had been awful enough, but he couldn't imagine the pain of losing a child. Even the fear of it had been enough to keep him awake some nights.

Sheila and Rod wanted to bury their son in Rochester, where he had grown up, where his friends and family could visit the grave. Kurt didn't put up a fight on any of it - not that he'd have had the legal rights to challenge them anyway.

Burt had been at the point of starting a fight himself at the viewing every time a friend or relative went through the line to offer their regrets and support to the Mulryans and awkwardly passed by Kurt as if he didn't exist, as if he hadn't been anything to Emmett, as if all the years they'd spent together meant nothing because they hadn't signed a goddamn piece of paper. Because they were two men.

He spent the day of the funeral torn between sheer rage at the disrespectful behavior of some of the attendants and concern for Kurt, who seemed to be holding himself together very well. Too well.

Consumed by worry for Kurt's loss, he had barely had time to consider his own, but it hit him hard when he ended up in front of the casket himself. He studied Emmett's still face - a face usually full of smiles and laughing irreverence - surrounded by silk cushions and white flowers, and he wondered what the hell God's problem was.

He hadn't known Emmett as well as he'd have liked to, as New York was a good enough distance from Lima that visits were rare, but Kurt had loved him very much, and that was enough for Burt. And now he never would get to know him better. Now his grandson would never know his other dad.

And that was just damn unfair.

And Kurt . . . . Did these things always have to happen to Kurt? For someone so young, he'd seen too much loss, too much heartbreak. Too much death.

The whole goddamn universe had it out for his son.

* * *

><p>One week bled into another, and gradually the overwhelming stream of solicitous neighbors and homemade casseroles lessened as everyone shrugged off their mourning clothes and returned to their own daily lives, glad that they hadn't been the ones in front of the casket - or in it.<p>

Carole ran out of sick days at work, and she reluctantly booked a flight back home, swearing to come back anyway if they needed her. Rod and Sheila returned home to grieve in private with promises to come back later to help. And so it was just the three of them in the suddenly-still apartment.

It was easier in some ways, Burt knew, but in others, it was so much harder. The visitors and arrangements were frustrating, but they were distractions, and without the distractions, the full scope of what had happened would begin to sink in.

There were a lot of things that Burt could never understand about his son, things he'd never really known how to talk about with him. As much as they loved each other, there would always be a little disconnect between them - not because Kurt was gay or because he liked clothes and musical theatre, but because they were two different people who really didn't have a whole lot in common.

But this - this was something that Burt knew, something he could help with.

He watched at first; it was best to let Kurt approach this on his own time. And there was Jace to think about - Jace, who was barely five months old and who needed his dad's constant attention. Kurt seemed to bear it all perfectly, feeding and diapering and rocking and cleaning and cooking with complete composure, the circles growing under his eyes and the tension building up in his shoulders.

So it went for an entire week. Kurt went through the motions of his routine, setting three cups of coffee at the table in the morning and waiting for the sound of Emmett's key in the lock each evening. He didn't look sad, he didn't look angry - he just poured the untouched coffee down the sink. Burt observed him with concern, not making a fuss about the extra cup or the way Kurt forced himself to stay awake into the early hours of the morning with Jace. He waited.

After two blurry, silent weeks, Kurt finally reached his breaking point.

Burt blinked up at the ceiling, momentarily disoriented, and then the sound that had woken him registered in his sleep-addled mind as a child crying. He waited just a minute, rubbing at his eyes, but the howling didn't stop, and he couldn't hear Kurt moving around.

Dread curdled in his stomach, and he crawled off the air mattress in a clumsy tangle of limbs. Kurt's bedroom was dark, but he navigated his way inside, squinting, and stumbled toward the bed. Kurt was awake, staring out his window with blank eyes, and Burt blew out a relieved breath.

"Kurt?"

Kurt's shoulders slumped, but he didn't move, didn't look up. Jace's screams reverberated around the small room, and Burt hurried over to the crib, lifting his grandson out tenderly.

The kid reeked, so Burt changed his wet diaper quickly and then brought him out to the kitchen, rooting through the fridge until he found the extra bottles. He took a moment to comfort Jace, stroking his thin, downy hair, remembering long nights like this with Kurt.

"Love you, squirt," he mumbled, and Jace calmed a little, settling into his arms.

When he came back into the bedroom, Jace suckling contentedly on his formula, Burt found Kurt in the same position. Settling in the rocker, he fed Jace and watched Kurt clutch his covers as Burt hummed tunelessly in time with the creaking chair.

When Jace had fallen back asleep, Burt settled him back in the crib and lay down on the bed, stretching out on top of the covers with a sigh. He reached out and pulled Kurt's unresisting body into his arms awkwardly, a little roughly, and cradled him like he hadn't done since Kurt was eight and crying for his mother.

"You can't do this anymore, kiddo," Burt said quietly.

Kurt's breath hitched and shuddered, his shoulders tensed, and at last he began to cry. Gritting his teeth against a prickle of tears, Burt shifted and squeezed him closer, rocking unconsciously, and cursing whoever was up there for giving people someone to love only to take them away again.

The next morning, Kurt set out two cups of coffee.


	11. Mothers and Sons

_A/N: Hi, everyone - I've had some unpleasant things going on IRL, and I apologize that updates fell by the wayside. Things are better, and since I have time to write again, Ch.10 should be up within the next week. Thank you all for sticking with this!_

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><p><strong>Chapter Nine: Mothers and Sons<strong>

_February 2021_

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><p>"Blaine? It's me again. I know you're upset - you have the right to be, I'm not trying to say you don't - but please leave me a voicemail or a text or something to let me know you're okay. We don't have to talk. Please, Blaine."<p>

Disconnecting the call, Kurt dropped his phone onto his lap; Jace squirmed a bit where he lay sprawled out on the couch, complaining softly about the noise. Kurt ran a hand through his hair to soothe him and wished he could sleep as well as his son could. Sleep would be a relief at this point.

The past two weeks had been quiet, sedentary hell. Righteous anger had kept him relatively composed for a few days, and then the anger had melted away into regret, and then to shame, and then right back to anger - this time at himself.

Still, Kurt went about business as well as he could. He had work to do and a child to look after, and he couldn't spend his days shut up in his room wallowing like a teenager. Once a day, he did allow himself the time to call Blaine, hoping to get at least some message through. He suspected that all of his voicemails and texts were being deleted on sight - either that, or Blaine simply wasn't answering his phone at all. As remorseful as he was, it irritated Kurt that Blaine wouldn't talk this out like adults.

_Like adults. _He winced a little, his hand faltering on Jace's head.

Kurt had no qualms about owning up when he'd made a mistake. The Hummels took responsibility for fuckups, and he wasn't going to give up on this without at least some attempt at fixing the damage he'd done.

And yet, the damage hadn't been completely on his side. Blaine had to know that things weren't quite right with him. Why hadn't he stopped them? Kurt had made it abundantly clear that he was here temporarily, that he didn't want the complications of getting himself attached to someone else, that Jace was his first priority - he'd made that all crystal-clear to Blaine.

Hadn't he?

He loved Blaine dearly, of course he did, but Kurt couldn't help but feel a little betrayed. He'd needed Blaine to be his friend, someone he could rely on for a stable, comfortable friendship while he picked himself back up, and the very first time they were alone, Blaine jumped at the chance to sleep with him - as if he'd been waiting for the opportunity all along.

But then Blaine hadn't been the one to slap a hand on his thigh. Or kiss him out of the blue.

Kurt scrubbed at his face, sighing at his own paranoia. His phone buzzed abruptly, and he tapped the unopened text message before he could talk himself out of it.

**Im ok. Please stop calling me. **

His eyes stinging, Kurt erased the text.

Carole wandered into the living room, groping for the armchair without looking away from her book. Once she was settled, she glanced up at him and her eyebrows rose. "Are you alright, Kurt? You look a little down."

Kurt bit back the sardonic quip that leapt immediately to mind. "I'm fine. Just tired."

She removed her tortoiseshell reading glasses and set them on the table. Watching silently as he lifted limp-limbed Jace onto his shoulder, she smiled when Jace yawned into Kurt's neck.

"He looks about ready for his nap."

"He should be. We spent the morning at the playpark inside the mall, and he actually went down the little slide by himself." Kurt shifted Jace to the side, straightening out his leg. "We had a good time, but we're both definitely ready for a rest."

"Hmm. I remember that part. Their energy is amazing, isn't it? I wish I could still move like that."

He nodded absently, his attention focused on settling his sleepy son into a comfortable position. "What have you been up to today?"

"Reading a bit. Thinking."

"Hmm."

"May I tell you something personal that you probably won't like?" she asked, her voice carefully neutral as she placed her novel next to the glasses.

Kurt's eyes flashed up to meet hers with equal parts surprise and suspicion. "Go ahead."

"You keep saying it, but no one here really believes you're fine. I'm guessing you don't either."

"That's presumptuous."

"It is," she said, unruffled by his frosty reply. "Your dad thought we should let you come talk to him in your own time, but I think he underestimates the Hummel stubbornness. We _have_ waited - for a few months now - and I've always thought that there's a fine line between letting someone have the space to mull things over and letting someone stew."

Kurt bristled. "If you want me out of the house, just say so."

"That's not what I said." Carole shifted, propping herself up with her elbows. "I'm not your mother, Kurt, but I do think I have a good idea what she might say in this situation if she could."

He swallowed down a wash of resentment toward her that he hadn't felt since the day she'd become his stepmother. Carole hadn't known his mother; pictures and stories could never give her the right to speak for her, the right to claim some kind of intimate knowledge of her . . . but the outrage was fleeting. He didn't want to fight with anyone else.

"Your dad's been worried about you," she continued. "I know you'd rather have this conversation with him, but it occurred to me that maybe I could offer you something that he couldn't."

"And what's that?" he said with more resignation than spite.

"I know what it's like to be left with a baby to raise alone," she said simply. "Finn's dad died so quickly. I'm not trying to minimize what you and your dad felt when your mother passed away, but Burt knew about it beforehand - the illness was so long, and there really wasn't a chance of recovery. There was a little time to plan, a little time to expect it." She ran a hand through her hair, smoothing it behind her ears. "But there's something about losing someone suddenly that shocks you down to your bones, and it's very hard to live with it, don't you think?"

"Yes," Kurt admitted after a moment.

"When Chris died, I was nineteen, and Finn had been born just a few months before. I didn't know what the heck I was doing. Back then, everyone said that a single woman couldn't raise a child by herself. I was told that I'd ruin him somehow if I didn't have a man around the house. My parents wanted me to move in with them, but I stayed on my own. I needed to be independent," she smiled a little, "and for the most part, it worked. I made it, but Kurt, it was _very_ hard. And it still would have been hard even if Chris had lived. Raising a child is a fulltime job, as I'm sure you know.

"There is one thing I would have done differently: at first, I refused help because I felt like I had something to prove. I wanted them to see that I could do it on my own, that I was surviving just fine and I didn't need a man around to make me a good mom. Well, that was true, but I made it a lot harder on myself than it had to be."

_Well-intentioned but not exactly subtle_, Kurt thought sourly. "Carole, I understand, but it's different for me."

"How?" she challenged.

"I did accept help: I moved back here. I left my job and house and started leeching off my parents like the rest of my generation."

Her face lit up, as if she'd caught him. "See? You think of it as 'leeching.' That's not accepting help – that's doing something because you feel like you have no other choice. Accepting help is letting us babysit for you once in a while or letting yourself take a break now and then without feeling like you're imposing on us."

"So I let you do everything for me for the rest of my life because I lost my partner? Lots of people lose their husbands or wives – you know that, and I don't think you or Dad did that."

Carole was silent for a minute. "Kurt, of course I don't think that it's healthy for a person to just give up on their responsibilities because they've suffered a loss. That's probably as detrimental as trying to do everything by yourself. What I'm trying to say is that there isn't a big black line separating the two. It doesn't have to be one thing or the other; there's a happy medium in there somewhere."

He was starting to lose his patience. "So how do you find it?"

"Stop pretending that everything's fine."

"Are you moonlighting as a counselor or something?"

That came out a bit harsher than he'd meant it to, but Carole laughed anyway. "No, but when Finn was about seven, I was considering marrying again." She waved away his startled look. "No, not to anyone in particular – just getting back into the dating scene. I was feeling pretty indecisive, and my sister sent me a few book suggestions, so I started digging. There are hundreds of books about grief and loss and single parenthood. A lot's pure bull, of course, but there were a few helpful things that stuck in my mind.

"Kurt, I'm not trying to lecture you. You're a grown man, and I don't want to sound . . . " she flapped a hand as if she could pull the appropriate word right out of the air ". . . condescending. And maybe none of this will help. Maybe it doesn't apply. I just want you to be aware of what worked for me so that you might see if it works for you. But it all really comes down to one thing: you shouldn't have to keep suffering like this."

Kurt planted one hand on the cushions, ready to push up and escape from this conversation. "I'm trying. I don't know what else you want me to do."

"I want to help you." Carole stretched her hand out, as if to touch his shoulder, and then withdrew it uncertainly. "Look, I know I'm not the first person you'd come to for advice under normal circumstances. That's okay. But no one else is going to push you, Kurt. And it's none of my business, but I want to try. Will you let me just say a few things? Just a few things, and then we can drop it."

He struggled for a minute and then grudgingly agreed.

"Children complicate things," she began. "A lot of people don't realize how much becoming a parent changes you." Her hand tentatively wrapped around the crook of his elbow, and he didn't shrug it off. "You know that's okay, don't you? No one expects you to be exactly the person you were before. And you want to know something that every parent feels but never says out loud?"

He nodded with all the airy indifference he could muster.

"It's normal to think about – even wish for – the times before you had your children. It's okay to feel a little sad about how you've changed or a little nostalgic for the days when you didn't have that kind of responsibility."

He stared at her, stricken, and her eyes widened a little with sudden understanding.

"Oh, honey," she murmured, squeezing his arm emphatically, "you're not a bad father. That does _not_ mean that you're a bad father. It means you're human."

Kurt didn't know what to say. He felt oddly stripped down - as if Carole had somehow sliced him in half and was now able to see every little fissure and rotten patch inside. "Sure," he croaked.

"You don't believe me," she said, "but it's true." She tucked her hair behind her ear reflexively, looking troubled. "I don't know exactly what you've been thinking, Kurt, but I do know how it was with me and how it is for lots of single parents. You don't really have time to grieve because you're in a hurry to make yourself okay so your child can be taken care of. Was that how it was for you?"

"Yes," he managed. "I guess . . . yes."

She smiled sympathetically. "I know how that feels, believe me – I know how it is to feel like you need to fix everything and you need to fix it now. But that hurts you."

"Maybe I didn't - I think I didn't really have to time to think about it. About him dying." Kurt choked on the word a little. "It was so fast. There was so much to do." His watery eyes spilled over, and he swiped at his cheeks as surreptitiously as he could, humiliated.

"Don't be embarrassed," she said tenderly. "There's nothing wrong with you. You know your dad's proud of everything you've done - and so am I. You haven't failed." She squeezed his arm, just this side of too-hard, her own eyes damp. "You did _not_ fail. You're a wonderful father and a wonderful man, and if those voices inside tell you otherwise, you tell them to shut the hell up."

"I'm not," he ground out. "I keep hurting people, and I never want to, but I always do."

She pursed her lips and scooted closer. "Blaine?"

"Blaine," he confirmed miserably.

"With Blaine - I don't know what happened between the two of you, and I certainly don't expect you to tell me, but can I give you another piece of advice that I learned the hard way? Just because someone has feelings for you doesn't mean that you're obligated to force yourself to feel something for them in return. And if you do have feelings, don't be upset if you're not ready to move as fast as they are. If you try to rush these things, they get all tangled up, and you have to look out for yourself, Kurt."

"I hurt him."

"We do that to people we care about sometimes. This might sound mean, but that's secondary now. Right now the most important thing is making sure you're okay. You need to work on yourself before you can expect other people to make demands of you, even if they're well-intentioned. How can you move on with someone else if you haven't moved on with yourself?"

"I _can't_ move on, Carole."

"I guess I don't really like the term 'move on,'" she amended thoughtfully, offering him a tissue from the side-table and then taking one herself. "It sounds like you have to pack up all your bags and go on your way and never come back. I don't think it works like that in real life."

"What do you mean?"

Carole hummed contemplatively. "I don't know if you ever really get over anything. I think it's more like you accept that it happened and that you can't change it, and then you learn to live with it."

Kurt snorted into his tissue. "That's not particularly optimistic."

"No," she agreed, "but death isn't exactly optimistic either, and you don't look forward to it. Unless you're a character in a Thomas Hardy novel."

He honked out a muffled laugh, and they regrouped for a minute, sniffling companionably into their Kleenex.

"What do you want me to do?" he said after a while. "What's the end here?"

"I don't have some kind of master plan, but do you want my honest opinion? I think you've been having some pretty bad spells of depression, honey."

He balked at the word, but she steered forward without pausing.

"You haven't been _you_. From some of your presenting symptoms, I think this is something that you need to see someone about. It doesn't necessarily mean pills or anything - they might suggest a counselor. Just going in to check up on it might be good for you, and depression isn't just something you can will your way out of. Please think about it, Kurt."

"I will," he said, beginning to feel the weight of the conversation. "I'm going to stretch out with Jace upstairs. I could use a little . . . space."

"I understand." She swiped at her eyes one last time before replacing her reading glasses and taking up her novel again. "I love you, Kurt. You know that, don't you?"

He bit his lip and shifted off the couch, carefully holding Jace steady. "Thank you."

She smiled a bit ruefully and then opened her book, allowing him to make a graceful escape.

His head spinning with a hundred thoughts, Kurt started up the stairs only to meet his dad halfway. Burt, in the process of failing to properly adjust his formal tie, stopped in his tracks when he got a good look at his son.

"You okay, kiddo?"

Kurt laughed a little shakily, disbelieving, and continued on up the steps. "I think so. I had a come-to-Jesus moment with Carole."

"She's pretty persuasive, huh?" he said knowingly.

He couldn't quite contain an incredulous chuckle. "Understatement, Dad."

* * *

><p>The doorbell rang for the second time, and Blaine debated whether answering the door was worth the effort of extracting himself from the sofa. Probably not, because the odds of it being someone he wanted to see were fairly low.<p>

Burrowing further under his flannel blanket, he turned up the volume, letting the sports announcer's voice drown out the insistent chiming. He'd had a long day at work, and he just wanted to watch some goddamn football.

The doorbell finally stopped. Tossing aside the remote, he sank back down into the cushions and refocused his attention on the game.

A key jingled in the lock, and Blaine bolted upright. Only one person had a spare . . .

"Blaine?" his mother's voice called. "I know you're home. Your car is out front."

Before he could stop her - although how exactly he _could _stop her was up for debate - his mother's diminutive figure appeared in the threshold.

"Um, hi," he stuttered.

Marijo took one long, faintly alarmed look around the living room, and Blaine felt himself flush. The end table was cluttered with empty coffee cups, wrappers, and dirty dishes, and there was actually a Blaine-sized hollow in the sofa – not surprising, considering how much he'd been lounging on it these last two weeks.

"I see you've been busy," she said, her voice carefully even.

"Yeah, I've - yeah." He threw off the blanket, wishing he hadn't changed into his oldest lounging pajamas, and frantically tried to arrange the mess into some semblance of order. "I wasn't expecting you."

"I can tell."

"What are you doing here?" He stacked the dishes haphazardly and hoisted them up, struggling to remember if he'd washed the ones that had been piled in the sink. "I mean, it's nice to see you."

She bent to pick up a few scattered spoons, wrinkling her nose at the half-crusted pudding puddle on one of them. "Your father is worried, and he wanted me to check on you."

Blaine did a double-take. "What?"

"You haven't looked like yourself at work lately, and he's afraid you're coming down with something." She lifted the grocery bag in her hand with a tentative smile as she led them both into the kitchen. "I brought you some soup and cranberry juice."

At a loss for words, he managed to say, "You didn't have to do that."

The tension in her shoulders eased. "Of course I did. Someone needs to look after you." Peeling off her faux-fur coat, she slung it over a kitchen chair, along with her purse and the groceries. "I haven't seen you for a few weeks. You didn't come over for dinner at all this month."

"I know." He didn't have a ready excuse, so he decided not to bother. "I'm not sick, Mom."

She tossed a puzzled glance over her shoulder. "Oh?"

"No." He steeled himself for a stream of questions, but to his surprise, she nodded silently and started unloading the sack. "Have you had supper yet?"

Blaine tried to remember the last time he'd eaten, and he vaguely recalled a greasy pizza late last night. "No."

"I'll heat up the soup," she said decisively. "It's Virginia ham and bean. There's enough for us to split, and I picked up a fresh baguette too."

He thought about politely refusing and sending her on her way, but the prospect of a little company was nice, and his mother had gone to all this trouble besides. She rarely came over to the apartment as it was, and he was beginning to feel a tiny stirring of guilt for skipping dinner.

He followed her into the kitchen and cleared the table, setting out the silverware and bowls. She shooed him away when he tried to slice the bread for her, so he took a seat and watched her heat the soup over the stove.

Blaine had spent a lot of time in the kitchen when he was younger, watching his mother cook and occasionally helping with any simple prep that didn't require using a sharp knife. He'd always liked the pungent, spicy scents and the warmth that seemed to radiate from the oven, content to listen to her talk about her day. It had been a safe place – a warm place in a cold house.

"It's done," she announced, searching for a potholder in his dishtowel drawer.

The soup was hot and flavorful and the bread was soft, and Blaine felt himself relax as he filled his stomach with something besides pre-processed takeout. His mother ate quietly next to him, a solid, reassuring presence, as they worked their way through the pot.

"You look sad," she said, apropos of nothing. It didn't shock Blaine that she'd noticed, but it did shock him that she said anything about it. The Andersons didn't draw attention to weakness, perceived or otherwise.

"Do I?" he laughed awkwardly. "I guess I need to get out a little more. Winter blues."

She flipped her spoon over and over between her fingers, looking nervous but uncharacteristically resolute. "Won't you tell me what's wrong?"

"Kurt and I had a fight," he admitted honestly. "A bad one."

"I was afraid it might be something like that," she said. "You haven't been mentioning him at all lately."

"I just - I really screwed up, and I don't know what I did wrong." Dimly, he was aware that he wasn't really making sense, but now that he was talking about it, he couldn't stop until everything was out. "I think I pushed him too far, but he was the one who started it, and I don't - why did he do that? I thought maybe . . . . "

"Maybe what?" she asked, clearly confused.

"It was stupid, but I thought - I thought maybe he still might, you know, care about me."

Her severe frown softened, and she reached for his hand. "Oh, Blaine. I didn't know."

He clenched his jaw and stared down at his soup bowl in search of some kind of distraction from the growing ache in his stomach. That moment when Kurt had kissed him - how stupidly happy he had been, thinking that Kurt was feeling what he was feeling. He'd had all these visions in head, all these expectations, and then Kurt -

Kurt hated him.

"Have you tried to talk to him?" his mother ventured.

_We don't have to talk about it. _His phone felt heavy in his pocket, laden down with all the voicemails and texts that he hadn't been able to delete despite himself. "I don't think I can. I'm pretty sure I just killed whatever chances I had. I think our friendship is done too."

She withdrew her hand, gold-filigree bracelets jingling. "I'm sorry you were hurt, but in all honesty, Blaine, I'm not sorry that nothing came of this."

He whipped his head up, shocked.

"I don't mean it like that," she said hastily. "Back in college, when he first went to New York - I was glad when he left. I was relieved." She gripped his wrist, as if fearful that he would tear away and leave the room. "Kurt caused so much friction between you and your father, and I thought - well, I thought wrong then, I know that now. I knew it as soon as I saw how deeply it hurt you. You've never been the same, Blaine."

Scooting her chair closer, she cupped his cheek. "When it came to Kurt, you were so invested, so much in love, that you weren't thinking of yourself. You would have gone with him anywhere, been anything that he needed or wanted you to be. And that," she paused, her lips tightening painfully, "that is not healthy."

"He loved me too," Blaine protested faintly.

"I know, but that isn't always enough." She let her hand fall away from his face and settle back on his arm. "I want to be honest with you. Forgive me, but I have to say this."

"Mom . . . ."

"Blaine, look at yourself. You've been isolating yourself for years. You haven't had real relationships for almost as long. You've been waiting on him, haven't you? He didn't wait on you, Blaine. He moved on. I'm sorry, but that's true, and just because that man isn't in the picture anymore doesn't mean it's all going to go back to the way it was. I know that's what you're thinking, Blaine, and it isn't going to work." She shook her head with unusual vehemence, her fingers curling into fists on the tabletop. "I've seen you slide back into it these last few months, and it's college all over again. You can't do this to yourself." Taking a steadying breath, she clasped her hands together. "I don't blame him," she said, more calmly. "I'm not angry at him. I don't understand what it is that made it so impossible for you to put him behind you. You never let him go, Blaine."

"I can't."

"Or you never tried in the first place." She fell silent for a minute, seemingly shaken by her own nerve.

"Why are you saying this now?" he managed to ask.

"I see so much of myself in you. I saw how you were around him then, and it scared me. It scares me now."

"It's not the same." He started to get up from his chair, overwhelmed, but she clutched at his wrist.

"Yes, it is. I know what it is to be in love with an image of someone," she said with a rawness that made his throat tighten up and his eyes burn. "Please, Blaine, be sure that it's _Kurt_ you love, not the memory of him.

"And if it is just the memory you love -" she slipped her hand into his and squeezed it "- just let him go this time, for your sake. And his."


	12. We All Fall Down

_A/N: Thank you so much for all your lovely reviews and favorites on the last chapter! The next one should be up within the week. _

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Ten: We All Fall Down<strong>

_March 2021_

* * *

><p>Squinting against the weak rays of sunlight that permeated the seemingly ever-present cloud cover, Kurt leaned against the porch railing, swinging his car keys as he tried to decide if he was ready to go inside or not.<p>

His dad was in the living room, no doubt, with one eye on Jace and whatever activity he'd dreamed up and the other eye on the college game reruns. Kurt gripped the strap of his bag and told himself to man up and join them.

Kurt knew his dad wouldn't push for information - he and Carole had very deliberately avoided the subject of the appointment this morning, and Burt had been fairly silent on the topic even when it had been open for discussion.

Still, his dad would ask how it went today, that much Kurt could be sure of. That was just how his father operated, and that didn't bother him as much as the fact that as soon as he was asked, he would probably spill every single thing on his mind.

Composing himself, Kurt tucked his keys away and opened the door.

"I'm home," he called, shuffling out of his boots and just barely getting his coat in the hall closet before his legs were tackled by Jace.

"Daddy's home!" he announced gleefully to no one in particular, throwing up his arms in a plea to be picked up. Kurt gladly obliged him. Jace's kiss was wet and sloppy, and he smelled like grape juice - his new dinosaur t-shirt was splotched with purple. "Hi, Daddy!"

"Hi, sweetie. Have you and Grandpa been having fun?"

"Look at the tower," he said, wriggling to get down and promptly taking Kurt's hand, leading him into the living room.

From the looks of it, Jace and Burt had pulled out every single block in the toybox - the precariously-balanced tower was almost Kurt's height. "Impressive," Kurt said as Jace circled around it proudly, dragging his father with him.

"See big tower?"

"Yes, I see it. It's a beautiful tower. Look how tall it is!"

Jace gave him a toothy grin and climbed up on the couch, flinging himself on Burt's lap. Burt winced a little, and Kurt had to suppress a laugh. His father had brought it on himself - he'd introduced Jace to WWE wrestling one evening despite Kurt's objections, and Jace had taken to "wrestling" with grandpa whenever the impulse took him. Consequently, Kurt was finding it difficult to muster up much sympathy.

"Play cars, Daddy?" Jace piped up, clambering out of Burt's lap. He dug into the toybox and found a ziplock bag filled with oversized Matchbox cars. Swinging it recklessly in one fist, he crawled back onto the couch next to his father. Kurt watched him struggle to open the zipper; he'd learned not to interfere until Jace grew frustrated enough to ask for help.

His tiny fingers managed to wedge the sides apart, and he tipped the bag upside down with a triumphant squeal.

"Mine red car," he observed, selecting a sleek Corvette. He rolled a pickup truck in Kurt's direction. "Daddy's green car. Grandpa's bus." Wheeling a lemon-yellow school bus to Burt, he proceeded to sort through the rest of his cars.

"So how'd - yeah, that's a blue car, squirt - how'd it go today, Kurt?"

Kurt kept his eyes trained on the growing pile of toys balanced on his lap, but he felt the full weight of his dad's gaze anyway. "Fine. She seems nice. Very friendly."

"Did she mention, y'know, the depression? Was Carole right?"

_Nothing to be ashamed of_, Kurt reminded himself. Dr. Bhattacharya had repeated that phrase so many times during their session that he'd actually started to keep count: nine times in a single one-hour appointment. "She thinks it might be mild to moderate depression." His thoughts flashed to the way she'd looked at him as she gave the diagnosis - just preliminary, she'd said - professionally detached but sympathetic in a way that was open but not too cloying. He liked her, as ready as he'd been to resent any kind of psychologist.

Burt's eyebrows drew together. "She put you on medication?"

"There may not be a need for it. She wants me to go in and talk to our doctor."

"But if you don't need pills . . . ."

"I might. She said anti-depressants can be effective for some people, but they usually don't work as well for mild cases. Everyone reacts differently, though, so she wants a second opinion. First, she wants to see if the sessions help, and if there isn't any improvement, we can look into medication."

Jace tipped the rest of his cars into Kurt's hands and slid off the couch, returning a moment later with Corduroy, who he employed as a launching pad for the racing cars.

"Don't throw, Jace," Kurt reminded him. "Please drive the cars nicely."

The little boy gave him a faintly incredulous look, but he refrained from turning any of the other cars into airplanes, at least while his dad was watching.

"You know, kiddo," Burt remarked, "he's got your arm. You threw one of your mom's teacups and said it was a hot air balloon - don't know where the hell you got that one. We bought you that plastic set after that." He chuckled, getting a faint smile from Kurt.

"Carole thought you'd like this lady," he continued. "What else did she say? If you wanna tell me."

"It's hard to talk about. I don't - I don't like to talk about these things."

"I know," Burt said simply.

Kurt sighed a bit, sending his truck on a dramatic crash-course with Jace's Corvette. Jace provided the sound effects with gusto. "She asked me questions about Emmett, about Jace, and about my job and our arrangements here. I just talked for an hour, basically. She wants me to choose a dozen or so pictures of Emmett and I - and Jace too, I suppose - and make an album, and then she wants me to bring it to the next session and tell her about each of the photos."

"Sounds . . . interesting." Burt sounded more than a little dubious; he'd seemed less keen on the idea of a counselor than Carole had, but he hadn't discouraged it either.

"I know," Kurt said. "At this point, it can't hurt to try."

"Did it help, talking to her?"

"Yes." Kurt paused, surprising himself with the answer. "Yes, I think it did." It was different, telling Dr. Bhattacharya these things about himself. He was well aware of the fact that he had a habit of keeping his private life very private, and the fact that the psychologist was a complete stranger made it easier, in some bizarre way. She didn't know him - she didn't understand the full scope of his history, the minute details of his life, in the way that his parents and friends did. He could tell her, because he could choose to quit those sessions any time and never have to face her again; he could tell her as much or as little as he wanted. It was under his control, and that was a truly liberating feeling.

Burt smiled a little. "Glad to hear it, kiddo."

Easing the clutter of toys off his legs, Kurt stood up. "Dad, I'm going to grab those albums - I'd like to start on it, I think."

"Sure. When do you go back?"

"Not for a week, but . . . " Kurt couldn't find the words to describe the restless energy that had stolen over him. His photo albums and scrapbooks, lovingly maintained, had been stored away in a cardboard box for months - well, for years, actually - and he wanted them with sudden, inexplicable urgency.

"Go on," Burt said, sparing him the trouble of explanation. "I'll find Jace some lunch."

"No hot dogs this time, Dad. Carole told me."

Burt looked a bit sheepish. "It was just a one-time thing, Kurt. You can't raise a kid on grass."

Kurt snorted and stood up, and Jace rushed up too, balancing on the cushions, Corduroy still in hand, as he lifted up his arms. "Up, Daddy?"

"Don't you want some lunch, sweetie? Grandpa will make you some lunch while Daddy does some work."

"No lunch, no! Up."

"C'mon, squirt." Burt got up with a groan. "Let's let Daddy work, huh? Aren't you hungry?"

"No."

"It's alright, Dad." Kurt hoisted him up, and Jace's arms and legs wrapped around him like a limpet. "I'll take him up with me. I'll get him something to eat later. Thanks for watching him."

"No problem, kiddo."

The box was tucked away in the closet, but Kurt found it easily enough, tugging it out and hauling it one-handed onto the mattress. Jace curled up on his lap with Corduroy, his eyes bright and curious as Kurt slit open the packing tape with his keys.

There were four albums and two digital photo frames, but Kurt chose the album on the top - it was only half-full, as he'd still been working on it when it had been sealed away after the funeral.

He smoothed over the black leather cover with embossed silver filigree, admiring the craftsmanship; Emmett had ordered it specifically for him, using his own design, as a housewarming present when they'd moved into their Soho apartment.

"We have to be very careful with this," he said, setting it on his knee. "Can we use gentle touches, Jace - like we do with our books?"

"Uh huh." Jace tentatively touched the shiny script on the front, fascinated.

"Let's look at the pictures, okay?" He turned the page, and the very first picture was from the Thanksgiving when he'd brought Emmett home with him to meet his parents. Emmett towered over all of them, bangs hanging in his grinning face, his arms tight around Kurt.

The reaction was instantaneous. The pain was sharp and bitter, and he wanted to put away the album, but he forced himself to keep looking. Jace deserved to see pictures of his father, and he - he deserved to look at his partner without always thinking of death.

"That's your dad," he told Jace, knowing his son probably wouldn't understand but needing to say it anyway. "He loved you very much."

Jace sucked on his fingers quietly and listened, peaceful in the way that only children can be.

Peeling back the page, Kurt snorted at the next photo. He and Emmett were sprawled on the ratty cushions of their old couch with red faces and crazy hair, laughing like loons. That had been taken on their first afternoon in the new apartment. The two of them had spent the morning arguing over that couch - Em bought it at a Goodwill for fifteen bucks back in his college days, and he'd been absurdly attached to it ever since. Kurt hadn't been so pleased about it coming into their apartment, and they'd finally settled the dispute after Em had proved the couch's worth as a prime make-out surface. He won that round.

(Kurt had won the next round, though, and the couch ended up in a dumpster.)

The spark of attraction he'd felt when he first saw Emmett had been exhilarating at a period when he'd been at his most lonely, new to the city and fed up with fleeting relationships. Em had walked into the boutique looking for a suit for his oldest sister's wedding, and the connection had been instant and mutual. It was hard to overlook the man, as hulking and blond and charming as he was, and he'd seemed just as intrigued with Kurt. Things had progressed very rapidly, all things considered, but it had felt _right_.

"It's Daddy," Jace announced, pointing at the photo next to the couch scene.

Kurt studied the image of his eighteen-year-old self in graduation robes - the tackiest red robes he'd ever had the misfortune of wearing - surrounded by his beaming family. He looked at his youthful face, captured mid-laugh and upturned to the boy glued to his side.

Blaine looked so impossibly small, his curls plastered to his head and the cuffs of his jeans turned up.

Kurt stared at the image, his eyes tracking back and forth between that photo and the last one. It was true that Blaine and Emmett shared some traits: both were enthusiastic and open, warm, affectionate, and honest to a fault. But Em had been louder and more opinionated than Blaine, a New Yorker through and through. He'd known his own mind, and Kurt had always admired that strength of will even if it set the two of them at odds sometimes.

The relationship probably would never have happened in the first place if Em had been a less persistent person. Kurt knew he hadn't been in the best place during that time, still smarting from the break up and struggling to adjust his high school dreams to realistic goals. Em had swooped in ready to conquer, all sunlight and blunt edges and sex, and Kurt had fallen hard despite himself. There hadn't really been any wild infatuation, any late-night pining - they were both tired of chasing and ready to settle down. It was stable, comfortable, reassuring, and Em wanted everything with him. It was a mature relationship. It was _adulthood_.

Em had been a little strange about Blaine. He knew the details - Kurt had insisted on a policy of honesty - and the basis of their longstanding and complicated friendship, and he'd reassured Kurt that he didn't have a problem with the long phone calls and weekly emails. But there was something there, some undertone of hostility that Kurt could never quite bring himself to address.

They'd skirted around the issue, and it only created friction between them when Kurt periodically suggested that Blaine come to visit. Em hadn't said _no_, exactly, but his displeasure had been obvious, and Kurt had been so exasperated with what he saw as childish jealousy that he'd dropped the idea altogether.

Kurt hadn't understood then why Emmett had felt so threatened. Blaine had been a remnant of his adolescence, a first love. Their relationship had been built on shared dreams and desires, on the joy of finding someone to love. Oh, it had been honest and genuine, no doubt about that - far more genuine than Finn and his revolving door of girlfriends or Rachel and her search for a leading man. But there was something else there. Loving Blaine had been easy too, but there had always been a danger in it, a danger of feeling too much.

Emmett was safer. He was predictable in a way that Blaine hadn't been because he was nearly impossible to persuade. He knew what he wanted and worked to attain it, as simple as that. But Blaine had always been pulled in so many directions, torn between what he wanted and what others wanted him to be.

And Kurt had lost them both anyway.

"Y'okay, Daddy?" Jace patted his cheek with one clumsy hand, his little brows creased with concern. "Y'okay?"

Kurt gently shut the album. "Daddy's going to be okay."

Satisfied, Jace burrowed his face into his father's neck. "I'm okay," he announced, his voice muffled by Kurt's sweater.

Kurt held him for a minute, swaying unconsciously. When he'd held his son for the first time, Emmett had been fidgeting so much behind him, eager for his turn with their new baby, that he'd passed Jace along before he'd really had the chance to absorb the feeling, but what he could remember, he remembered vividly. That instant connection, that immediate feeling of overwhelming love for a person he'd never met before that night - there was such a power in it, and he thought of how small Jace had been, and how much bigger he was now, and how swiftly time was moving. Kurt might have been stuck in a stasis, of sorts, but Jace hadn't, and somewhere along the way he'd grown up.

Kurt kissed his cheek, his forehead, his button nose. "Daddy's so sorry. It'll be better from now on. I love you so much."

Jace flopped over his shoulder, his arms wrapped around Kurt's neck. "Love you, Daddy."

Kurt just held him, steadying himself as he reopened the book and turned to the next page.

* * *

><p>The scent of coffee was usually a restorative for Blaine, but today the heavy aroma, mingled with sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon, made him feel slightly sick to his stomach. Deciding to skip a drink, he stepped through the doorway of the Lima Bean, searching the tables for Kurt.<p>

It didn't take long to find him - he was sitting in a booth, his back to the door, a cup on the table in front of him. His fingers drummed anxiously on his thigh. Blaine thought of turning around and going right back outside, but he'd asked Kurt to meet him here, after all, and he wasn't going to back down now.

Kurt must have heard him coming, because he twisted around, his eyes wide, and started to stand up.

Blaine walked past him and sat, and they stared at each other uncomfortably for a moment.

"You look good," Blaine said, saying the first thing that popped into his mind. It was true, though - the circles under Kurt's eyes were fainter today, his back straighter. He looked . . . different. Calmer.

He felt a flicker of resentment that Kurt could be so composed when he himself was anything but. He wanted to be angry at Kurt for sitting there so placidly, his hair perfectly arranged, his clothes pressed and neatly coordinated, but he couldn't.

"Thank you," Kurt murmured.

Their eyes met, held.

"About what happened . . . "

"Don't," Kurt said quickly, taking Blaine aback. "I'm so sorry, Blaine. God, I'm _so _sorry I hurt you. You have no idea how much I regret what I did - what I said."

Blaine squared his shoulders - he'd come here to forgive, and damn it, he was going to do it. He touched Kurt's hand tentatively. "I'm sorry too. I was just as much of a willing participant as you were, and I shouldn't have guilt-tripped you for it. And," he swallowed thickly, "I shouldn't have thrown Emmett in your face. That was below the belt."

"It was, but I forgive you. No worse than anything I said." Kurt smiled thinly, flipping his hand over to clasp Blaine's. His hand was dry and cold, and Blaine chafed it between his own to warm it out of habit. Kurt caught his breath, and his smile became more natural.

"Thank you for calling me, Blaine." Kurt kept holding his hand, despite a few curious glances from their nearest fellow patrons. "I'm glad to see you."

"Yeah, sorry for not calling sooner, but -" Blaine shrugged, not sure how to explain his sudden transition from anger and hurt to acceptance. The conversation with his mother had replayed itself in his head for days, and he'd spent a lot of time thinking it over and picking through his feelings. A resolution, shaky but growing stronger, had begun to take root inside him, and he'd somehow known that it was time to talk to Kurt. "Well, um, how has your month been?"

Kurt laughed a little. "We're going to do that, are we? Okay, I'll bite. It's been pretty horrible, to be honest, but there were some bright spots. I have a lot to tell you."

"So do I."

"Can I explain things, about what happened that night?" Kurt asked, direct as always. "I want you to know why it happened like it happened."

Blaine wasn't entirely sure he _wanted_ to know, but he wasn't going to say so. "Sure."

"Where to begin," he murmured, almost to himself. "You're a very open person, Blaine. You always have been - to me, especially. You're kind. You give people what they need, and I've been so used to it over the years that I haven't always thought about what you needed in return. Life has been hard, and I've -" He hesitated, meeting Blaine's concerned gaze with clear resolve. "I've been in a lot of pain, and I let that cloud my judgment.

"I think it was too easy for me," he continued slowly, "to fall back into that. In high school - when we were dating - I loved you so much. It scared me sometimes, how big and permanent it all seemed, but it was . . . safe. You don't forget how it felt. You've always been a safe place for me." He sighed. "That isn't an excuse, but I wanted you to understand."

"Thanks."

"It wasn't just sex." His mouth quirked grimly. "This may sound arrogant - and I'm not such a prize anymore - but I wouldn't have trusted anyone else with that. You aren't just a warm body. You're _Blaine_."

"Good to know," Blaine said, trying to make light of it, though that was the part of the whole thing that had stung the most. The thoughts of how it had felt to be with Kurt like that again still bothered him.

"We need to talk about the argument too, Blaine - about the break-up."

"We do. But we have plenty of time, don't we? We'll get to it."

Kurt took a sip from his cup, inhaling the steam lightly as his shoulders relaxed. "I'm glad to hear you say that." He fiddled with the lid. "We forgot the honesty policy. I should have been honest with you." He paused again. "I went to the doctor on Tuesday, Blaine."

Raw fear spiked up in Blaine's chest. "You're sick?"

Kurt blinked. "What? No, no, I'm sorry. Not a physician, a psychologist. Her name's Marcella Bhattacharya - she has a clinic in Columbus. I've been going two times a week."

Focusing on slowing his racing heartbeat, it took Blaine a second to register this revelation. "Really?"

"Yes." Kurt was making that chin-up, eyes-narrowed face that he always made when he was preparing to be measured and found lacking. "Carole suggested it. I've been to three sessions so far - I think it's helping me with Emmett and Jace. And you too."

"That's great," Blaine said emphatically. "Seriously, Kurt, I'm glad it's helping."

"It's good to talk to someone. I should have talked to you more too."

"I didn't ask you to, Kurt."

"Yes, you did," he protested. "You asked me about Emmett, and I told you I wouldn't talk about it. That was my fault. I thought it was too awkward, talking about him to you, and it's complicated with Jace involved." He frowned. "Can I tell you something I've never told anyone else?"

"Anything."

Kurt nibbled nervously on his lip. "I didn't want kids."

"What?" he blurted.

"Emmett had a huge family - six brothers and sisters altogether, and there were always a bunch of cousins running around. When we first started dating, he told me outright that he wanted a family of his own. It didn't bother me because I never thought dating him would develop into anything serious. We were together four years. We moved in together. We were committed. We had everything short of a marriage license, because he didn't believe in getting married until it was legalized across the country.

"But I wasn't ready to be a father, Blaine. I told Emmett I wanted to keep working for a while - get established in the business before I moved to freelance, but . . . he was so eager to start a family, so insistent about having children while we were still young. He showed me all the literature, all the pamphlets and websites and advice columns - they said that the adoption process could take years, and if we didn't start right away . . . It's such a touch-and-go business anyway. So we applied, and I thought it would be months, years maybe, and six weeks later, there was Jace." Kurt paused, smiling a little. "We came in to see him, and he was so perfect, Blaine. We both fell in love with him, and the paperwork went through, and he was ours."

There was another tense pause - Kurt rubbed his eyes and breathed deeply, shakily.

"Emmett stayed home with him for the first three months while I worked, and then he was commissioned on a project that he couldn't refuse. I didn't mind staying home until the project was done, and we needed the money pretty badly. It was hard, but we were so happy. I loved being a father. But Emmett did most of the day to day care, so it was an adjustment. I just - I just didn't take to it the same way he did." He shrugged helplessly. "He was a natural, and I just . . . wasn't. But I thought that he would help ease me into it, help me balance everything out, and I would learn after a while. And then he was dead."

"Kurt, I don't - wow. I don't know what to say."

"Don't misunderstand me, Blaine. I _love _my son," he said fiercely. "I love him more than anyone in the world, and I would do _anything_ for him, but it's so -I feel like he was cheated out of a parent. Emmett would have been a better father for him. It should have been me."

"Don't say that!" Blaine snapped, his gut twisting at the very idea.

"What I'm saying is that once you become a parent, it changes things. Jace and I are a complete package now, Blaine - you wouldn't just be getting me."

That had occurred to Blaine too, several months ago, and he knew it wasn't just something to brush off. The possibility of jumping right into parenthood like that was daunting, and it deserved to be considered carefully. "I see that," he said. "So where does that leave us?"

"I don't know," Kurt admitted. "What do you want, Blaine?"

"I want us to be friends. I'll always want that."

Kurt sat very still, his fingers laced tightly around his coffee cup. "Are you sure, Blaine? I can't promise - I'm trying, I really am - I don't want you to get hurt again."

"I'm sure," he said, and this time, he truly meant it. "I guess you know everything now, so there's no use in hiding it. I do love you, Kurt. I always have, but more than anything, I want to be your friend. I'm okay with that - or I will be okay with it. Honestly, this time."

Kurt opened his mouth, closed it, and then tried again. "Blaine, I . . . I need a little time, and then -"

"I know." Blaine pried one of his hands off the cup and squeezed it. "Take all the time you need. I'll still be here, as your friend. All I need to know is that you'll be here for me too."

Kurt squeezed back. "I will." He looked up at Blaine with a warm, genuine smile. "So, in other words . . . we'll see?"

Blaine nodded. "We'll see."


	13. Marching On

_A/N: Thank you so much for all your lovely reviews and favorites on the last chapter! The next one should be up within the week. _

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><p><strong>Chapter Eleven: Marching On<strong>

_April 2012_

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><p>"This was a very productive session, Kurt," Dr. Bhattacharya remarked with an easy smile, replacing Kurt's file in her drawer. "I know it was hard, but thank you for pulling through with me. This kind of work takes a lot of courage."<p>

Feeling more than a little drained, Kurt simply nodded and began stowing away his notebook and pen in his satchel. His hand was sore from all the writing, but the minor inconvenience was worth it – today_ had_ been productive, and he felt oddly refreshed.

The bi-weekly sessions ran more smoothly now; a month's worth of them had given him a level of comfort that he hadn't thought possible. Dr. Bhattacharya was kind, if somewhat relentless when she had a goal in mind, and Kurt quickly came to look forward to their meetings. It was a chance to talk without embarrassing himself, a way to let someone from the outside help him rearrange everything on the inside. She didn't mother him, but she wasn't cold either. She was just . . . objective. Who knew objectivity could be so appealing?

He'd thought that counseling was just sitting and talking, and sometimes it was, but Dr. Bhattacharya had all sorts of assignments that she'd use to guide their discussions. Today he'd mainly worked on his journal, a project that she'd introduced during their first week. On days like today, he'd write for a half-hour – whatever popped into his head, good and bad – and share it with her, and then they'd discuss it. Sometimes they talked about Emmett, sometimes about Jace or his parents . . . sometimes about Blaine.

Today it had been about Emmett, mostly. Last night, for the first time in over nine months, Kurt had talked to Emmett's parents. They'd kept in contact for a while after the funeral, checking up on each other, but Kurt had let the communication die out when reminders of his partner had become more upsetting than reassuring. In the process, he'd cut them off from their grandson. The depression had been too consuming by that point for him to realize or care what he was doing to them, and to Jace.

The buried guilt had been a tremendous weight that he hadn't even noticed, and he'd been almost as relieved as Sheila sounded when he called. He'd been tongue-tied at first, unsure how to even begin to explain, and the honest joy in her voice when she recognized his voice had only multiplied his deep regret. Pushing that away, he'd turned on Skype and brought Jace on, and the tears in the Mulryans' eyes when they saw their grandson had made him cry too.

Some days it seemed like he hardly ever stopped crying.

It was normal, Dr. Bhattacharya assured him. Months of forcing down his feelings had only compressed them, not eliminated them, and they had to come out eventually. Steps like these were just part of the process. All things considered, Sheila and Rod had been remarkably forgiving – more forgiving than he'd have been in those circumstances - and after the conversation was finished, Kurt swore to himself that he wouldn't let his own grief bulldoze over innocent bystanders anymore.

Enough was enough.

"Do you have any big plans for this evening?" Dr. Bhattacharya asked conversationally, drawing him out of his reverie. She shut down her computer and reached for her own briefcase; Kurt was typically her last patient before she closed up for the night.

"I'm taking Jace to run around the playpark in the mall, and then he's going to have some Grandpa and Grandma time tonight." Kurt hesitated and then mowed forward. "I'm having dinner tonight with Blaine."

He was afraid she might object – they'd talked a lot about Blaine and the complicated nature of their relationship – but she just smiled with the slightest teasing edge. "Well, that sounds like fun." She opened the office door for him and stepped out herself, locking it behind her. "You know, I think we can probably cut your sessions down to once a week now."

"Already?"

She shrugged, a few thick strands of inky hair escaping over her shoulders. "Like I said, you're doing very well, Kurt. If you feel like you need more than once a week, we can switch it back without any problem."

"Okay," he agreed warily.

They walked to their cars together, the lot largely deserted. Dr. Bhattacharya's heels tapped loudly on the pavement, and he glanced down at her eggplant-colored pumps. "Kenneth Cole?"

She looked down, puzzled, and then laughed. "Yes, actually. You're good at that." She hit the unlock button on her Jeep and opened the door. "Speaking of which, how is the job search going?"

"I got in contact with my old manager at Beaufort's, and they need a maintainer for their online shop. It's part-time, but it would add a good chunk to my freelance. No guarantees, but I sent in an application."

"I'm glad to hear it, Kurt. Have a good night." She watched him climb into the Navigator and then shut her door, waving briefly before she peeled out of the parking lot.

Kurt sat for a moment, smiling to himself, before turning on the ignition.

Balancing the dish of apple crumble on his hip, Kurt wiped his hand on his dark-wash jeans and then pressed the call button next to the mailboxes.

"Hey, Kurt!" Blaine's cheerful voice was too loud in the small alcove. "I'll buzz you up." The door clicked open a second later, and Kurt went on up the stairs, unable to prevent himself from thinking about the last time he'd been up here.

He and Blaine had been careful to avoid that situation again, and they had quite a bit of discussion over the wisdom of having another private dinner like this. But Kurt felt ready for this; he treasured his uninterrupted time with Blaine, and they needed to have a very personal conversation besides. It had been put off too long.

Blaine appeared in the doorway, beaming, before Kurt had even made it halfway down the hall. His eyes lit up when he noticed the dish. "You made me apple crumble?"

"At first I couldn't decide between this and blueberry almond cheesecake." Blaine's genuinely conflicted expression made Kurt laugh. "I can make the cheesecake some other time. What's for supper?"

Blaine ushered him inside, hanging his jacket on the wall peg. "Vegetable lasagna and stuffed peppers. I got the recipe from my grandma. It's amazing."

"What can I help with?" Kurt took in the nice table settings and felt an anxious flutter low in his stomach. It was the good kind of anxious, though – the kind that he hadn't felt in a while.

"Whatever you want to. I was just starting to layer the lasagna, but I haven't gotten to the peppers yet." Blaine wandered off toward the counter, which was coated with a jumble of cooking paraphernalia.

Forest green had always been a stunning color on Blaine, and the dress shirt he wore had a very flattering, tailored fit. Blaine's hair wasn't gelled today either, the short curls brushed carelessly over his forehead. Kurt let himself look, waiting for the customary sting of guilt, but it never came.

"—be a nice thing to try, I think. Don't you? Kurt?"

Kurt's gaze flicked up quickly. "Hmm?"

"I'm going to try to a different type of cheese for the sauce. Is that okay?" He paused. "Are _you_ okay?"

"Fine. I'm fine." And this time, Kurt thought, he really meant it.

Blaine's eyes were warm, crinkled at the corners. "Glad to hear it."

They returned to the cooking - Kurt found a ratty old apron in a lower drawer and wrapped it over his sweater, joining Blaine at the counter. He diced the onions and tomatoes and carved out the green peppers while Blaine finished the lasagna, cursing every so often when he tore the delicate noodles.

Blaine cheerfully complained about annoying clients at work while they cooked, and Kurt told him a little about his session. Blaine didn't pry, which Kurt truly appreciated, but he listened readily enough, always encouraging.

"She thinks I'm ready to reduce the sessions to once a week." Kurt debated internally and then confessed, "I've started looking around for an apartment."

Blaine stilled, his spoon in midair, and silence stole through the kitchen. "In Lima?" he managed after a tense moment.

"Yes, of course. There's a little block of cheap apartments about a mile from the house. I was thinking of asking Dad to come look at them with me. I don't know how cheap we're talking here, but it would be nice to be close to Dad and Carole."

Blaine's tight shoulders relaxed. "You know your parents don't mind, right?"

"Yes, I know, but _I_ mind." He transferred the chopped onions to the saucepan, giving himself a second to formulate his thoughts. "I'm very grateful for what they've done for me, and I really did need that support at first. I'll still ask them for babysitting help sometimes, but I'm capable of being in my own place again, Blaine. It'll make me feel better, knowing that I'm on my feet again. I need to do this for me."

"I understand," he said immediately, and Kurt knew he really did. "I can poke around some properties too, if you'd like me to. Camilla has a sister in real estate in Lima. I can ask her if there's anything good out there that she knows of."

"I'll take you up on that. Thank you."

They finished the peppers and popped them in the oven along with the lasagna pan. Blaine poured them glasses of lemon iced tea that he'd chilled, and they retreated to the living room to wait for dinner.

"Do you want to watch a movie or something?" Blaine asked. Kurt noticed that he deliberately chose the armchair, leaving the entire sofa for Kurt – the implications made him both grateful and a little sad. But there was another task at hand.

"Actually, I had something I wanted to talk to you about," he said.

Blaine fidgeted, obviously catching his tone. "About what?"

Kurt set his iced tea on the coffee table and occupied his hands with a sofa cushion. "About our break-up." He had been expecting Blaine to protest, change the subject, or laugh it off, but to his surprise, Blaine just nodded.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

Blaine shrugged. "You're not the only one who's been doing some thinking lately, Kurt. To be honest, I'd like to understand what happened back then, because I've never been able to figure it out."

"Oh. Well." This time Kurt was the flustered one. "Where should we start?"

They exchanged uncertain glances, and then Kurt decided to jump in head-first. "We've never really talked about why things turned out the way they did. What you said, when we fought that night – it's been bothering me. You said that I left you behind – you made it sound . . ." He stopped, wondering again whether he really wanted to hear the truth. "I thought the break-up was mutual. You made it sound like it . . . wasn't. Not for you."

Blaine tugged at his ear nervously. "I didn't want to, but you were so determined that I didn't think I could stop it. What was I supposed to do? Force you to stay?"

"I knew you weren't happy, but I didn't -"

"We weren't communicating," Blaine interjected.

"That was just it, Blaine. You were pulling away from me – you were always busy. And I tried to understand, I did, but you kept getting in deeper and deeper, and I was afraid. Your father . . ." Kurt stopped himself and blew out an exasperated breath. "Your dad was putting so much pressure on you to stay with the company, and you let him push you around. You wouldn't_ listen_ to me."

"I was listening," Blaine protested. "I just didn't know who to listen to. You know what the economy was like that year; my parents were desperate. The company was collapsing, and my mom begged me to stay until the rough patch was over and they could get their workers back – I thought it would be a few months, a year tops. You wanted me to drop them just like that. If I left when they needed me most, I don't think they could have forgiven me."

"It was never just going to be a year, Blaine. I knew they would keep you there."

Blaine scrubbed his hands over his legs, looking torn. "Please try to think of it from my perspective, Kurt. You were asking me to choose between you and my family."

"I didn't -"

"I know they aren't like your parents," Blaine interrupted with a touch of anger. "They may not be as supportive as I'd like – they may not approve of me, or of you, but they love me in their own way, and they're – they're my _parents_, Kurt."

It was obvious that they would never agree on the Andersons' motives, so there was no point in pushing it. There were more important things to talk about. "Alright," Kurt said gently. "I didn't know the whole story, Blaine. But try to understand my position too. Our relationship was deteriorating – you were overworked and overstressed, and I couldn't find any way to get you to stop working, and we were starting to fight all the time, and I just – I just couldn't stand to see that happen to us. I watched Finn and Rachel. All of their problems and little arguments just exploded in one big mess, and they've never forgiven each other. They went from loving each other to hating each other. I couldn't stand to have that happen to us.

"At least this way – if we broke up before everything crumbled, there was a chance that we wouldn't lose each other completely. We were a trainwreck waiting to happen, Blaine. There was so much pressure, and if it exploded . . . this way, I thought we could salvage our friendship."

"So you just walked out?"

"I was going to lose you either way."

Blaine looked pained, and they were quiet for a bit, letting things sink in. Kurt traced the rim of his glass, toying with the condensation, and thought about that year. He'd been so tired himself, tired of Lima and tired of putting aside his dreams.

"That's not all," he forced himself to say. "It wasn't just the work. I was ready to get to New York, Blaine, and I hated having to wait that year. I guess I . . ." he hesitated to say the word, but then again, _honesty_ ". . . resented it. I resented you too, for keeping me there. It was irrational, of course, because it was my choice to stay, but I felt it anyway. I think everything just came to a boiling point."

Blaine looked stunned. "You never told me any of that. I had no idea."

"I know. I didn't want to tell you. Maybe I didn't really know it myself." Kurt finished his tea for the sake of having something to do with his hands. "Why didn't you tell me about your parents, Blaine? I might have understood, if we'd talked."

"I don't know," Blaine said with a ghost of a smile. "Maybe I didn't understand then either." He looked down, his smile fading. "I would have done my best to join you that next year, Kurt."

"Do you really think you would have?"

Blaine paused and then sighed, slumping into the chair. "I don't know. I'd like to think that I would have. I thought about it, after you left – I had all these pictures in my head about quitting and taking a bus to New York, but I never did. And by the time the company was stable again, you had already met Emmett."

Kurt swallowed back instinctive dismay at the bitter note of hurt in Blaine's voice. He wanted to reassure him, but what could he say? He wouldn't apologize for falling in love with Emmett, because it wasn't something he regretted. "I'm sorry I hurt you," he said instead, shifting on the sofa until he could reach Blaine's hand. "Nothing turned out the way I thought it would, and I can't say that I would change it, but believe me, if I could have stopped you from getting hurt . . .."

Blaine squeezed his hand between both of his. "It's okay. You are responsible for me, you know. I made my own choices too."

"We both made mistakes."

"That's what happens when you're young, I guess. But we're not young anymore." Blaine lifted his head and smiled tremulously, his eyes suspiciously shiny. "I'm just -" He choked a little. "I'm _so_ glad you're back, Kurt."

Blaine hid his face, but Kurt scooted onto the edge of the chair, leaning over to wrap him in his arms. Kurt pressed his cheek against Blaine's hair and closed his eyes, stroking his back evenly, full to bursting with affection and the urgent desire to make things better – for both of them this time.

"_I'm_ so glad I'm back," he told Blaine. "I've never been so happy to be in Lima."

The shrill sound of a buzzer startled them both, and they drew apart, laughing and wiping at their eyes, half-giddy. Blaine drew Kurt back in a hug one more time, squeezing him tight and then pulling him to his feet. "Let's have dinner."

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><p>The football game was almost over, and Blaine knew he couldn't put off the inevitable much longer. He glanced over at his dad, whose attention was evenly divided between a stack of bills and the television, and then over at his mom, who was demurely holding a book and pretending she wasn't interested in the game.<p>

He looked back at the television blankly. The longer he waited, the more intemperate the reaction might be; it was time for a confrontation, and he only hoped that he'd be welcome in the house by this time next week.

His mother caught his gaze. "Can I get you something to drink, Blaine?" she asked, solicitous as always. "How about you, Tim? I made lemonade."

"I'm not thirsty, thanks." He shifted, putting a little distance between his father and him on the couch. "I wanted to tell you both something important."

His mother's face flushed with alarm, but it took his dad a moment longer to catch up. "Important how?"

_Here it goes_. "I've been thinking things over lately - thinking about my future. I've been considering it for a while, but I'm finally ready to take a step."

"Don't!" his mother burst out. "Blaine, we talked about this already; you said you understood. You said you wouldn't."

Blaine gritted his teeth. "This isn't about Kurt, Mom." He turned to face his father. "I want to go back to school this summer."

His father let out a sharp bark of disbelieving laughter. "School? Blaine, what are you thinking? You're fully qualified. There's no need to waste money on extraneous courses."

"Not for business. I want to get a teaching degree."

The amusement on his father's face vanished. "Teaching? Teaching what?"

Blaine steeled himself for the backlash. "Music."

His mother's eyes were wide, but his father's narrowed into slits. "Music. What sort of career can anyone make with music? I thought we got this ridiculous idea out of your head years ago, Blaine."

"I've always wanted to teach music. I haven't stopped."

Shaking his head, his dad snatched up the remote and shut off the TV. The abrupt silence was a little chilling, but Blaine told himself not to be intimidated.

"You'll never find a job with a teaching degree in music. In this economy, you'd be foolish to jump out of a comfortable position like you've got now for some pipedream."

"I've done research," Blaine said, determined to say his piece. "There's a good chance of finding a steady job in elementary music education. The government's had a real turnaround with arts education in schools, and some districts are willing to shell out a decent salary for music teachers. Private schools like Dalton pay especially well."

Unable to argue with that, his father quickly switched tactics. "And how are you going to find a college and stay afloat? You haven't been there in years. How can you compete with all those younger students?"

Blaine met his gaze steadily, and then turned to look at his mother. "I know I can do this. I have a passion for it, and I'm willing to work hard."

"And where are you going to get the money?" his father demanded. "I'm not paying for it."

"I don't expect you to. I have a decent chunk of money stored up, and I haven't touched any of Grandpa Anderson's inheritance. I have good credit, so I'm sure I could find a reasonable loan service if I need to."

"But why _music_? Blaine, that's not a career." He rubbed at his eyes and sighed. "If you're doing this for that . . . Kurt Hummel, then -"

"I'm doing it for me," Blaine spit. "I hate working there. I never wanted to stay; I only stayed because you asked me to, and then because I was afraid I couldn't do anything else."

"It's a family business! You'd give up respectable work to chase whimsies . . . ."

Blaine wanted to stomp his foot in sheer frustration. "Chasing whimsies? I didn't hear you complain when Harry decided he was going to travel all over Europe for no reason when he finished college. Why are my plans less sensible than wasting money on sight-seeing?"

"That was different. Harry was never -" He stopped.

"Was never _what? _Never was gay? Never was a disappointment?" Blaine sucked in a deep breath. "You know what, Dad? That doesn't matter. I'm not asking you for permission. I just thought I should let you know what I decided, because I won't be available for the same hours in the summer."

"It's not going to work. I can't have my employees on a different schedule. I need you there for flexible hours. It's a policy."

"What policy? You let Kayla take classes without any qualms. In fact, I clearly remember you saying that you were happy to accommodate her."

"This isn't up for discussion, Blaine."

"Tim, maybe . . . "

"No, Marijo," he snapped at her. "You've indulged him too much. Listen, Blaine, I'm giving you a choice. You can have your job or you can have your school, but you're not getting both."

"Then I guess I quit." Blaine stood up, collected his things, and left.


	14. What I Have Gained Part A

_A/N: Thank you so much for all your lovely reviews and favorites! I decided to split up the last chapter into two parts, so Part B will come soon, and then the epilogue. _

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><p><strong>Chapter Twelve: What I Have Gained<strong>

_May 2021 _

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><p>"Fifty-two, twenty-one-oh-nine, eight . . . dammit, I lost track again." Burt smacked the accounting book onto the concrete floor of the garage with a frustrated grunt.<p>

"It's fine, Dad," Kurt soothed, plucking the tablet off the floor. "I've got it. You're been slaving over this all morning; go sit down and rest for a minute." Opening the next cabinet, he started to pick through the grimy shelves, recording the serial numbers of the items they needed to reorder.

"I waited too long to do this," Burt complained, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. "It's a crap job anyway, and Finn's made a mess of my storage system."

"You know he can't organize to save his life." Kurt's attempt at placation earned him a disgruntled snort. "Oh, come on. It won't take too much longer - you've already done the entire spare room. I'll finish up here and you can start on that commission you need to do."

He was already opening up a folder, pen in hand. "Yeah, for all the good that'll do," he said, but he sounded less discouraged. "These special joint committees are a joke, you know." He jabbed his pen in the air for emphasis. "It's just an excuse to put things off so no one ever has to deal with the real problems. And I used to wonder why the government was so damn inefficient."

"Well, that was before they had you there to hurry them along."

Burt grumbled a bit more, but Kurt thought he looked pleased.

Another half-hour of work was all that was necessary to complete the form for the orders, and Kurt decided to leave the actual submission for Finn, considering that his lack of organizational skills had complicated the process so much. After putting the shelves back into some semblance of order, Kurt made a quick lunch run, bringing the food back to the office.

Burt peeked into the paper bag Kurt had dropped in front of him. "You sure this is edible?"

"Now you're just being difficult," Kurt said, taking his mocha and reclining in the swivel chair by the computer. "It's a hummus wrap with spinach, cherry tomato, and almonds."

Burt gave him a resigned look and unwrapped the sandwich dolefully. He took a tentative bite. "You're not eating?"

"I ate after my counseling session this morning. Blaine brought me some pasta salad a few days ago, so I just had some leftovers. I didn't want it to spoil and go to waste."

Burt stopped chewing and pinned him with a speculative gaze. "Huh."

"Dad, stop it."

"I didn't say anything."

"You're looking at me. _Meaningfully_."

Burt chuckled a little and returned to his wrap.

Kurt waited for a few more minutes, but his father was munching contemplatively, apparently uninterested in continuing the conversation. Telling himself not to get provoked, Kurt settled back and checked his email, sipping at his mocha.

Tossing the empty wrapper and bag in the trashcan, Burt settled low in his chair with a creak. "Well, that wasn't half-bad. Where'd you get it?"

"The sub shop downtown," Kurt told him, aiming at the can with his empty coffee cup. "Normally, I'd make it for you myself, but I need to refill the fridge. Jace is eating so much more now." He let out a soft triumphant noise as his cup swished into the trash. "I was thinking I would make chicken quesadillas tonight."

Burt glanced over at him with some surprise. "You're not going with Blaine tonight? I thought you two went out to eat on Wednesdays."

"He can't make it this week – he just started his new job with Regency Finance yesterday, and he's going through training."

"How's he like it?"

Kurt smiled, thinking about the enthusiastic phone call he'd received the night before. Blaine had been half-asleep on his feet after a long day, but he'd been so excited about the new start that he'd spent an hour chattering on about his coworkers and the layout of the office building until Kurt had reluctantly reminded him that he had to put Jace to bed. It had been wonderful, though, to hear Blaine sounding eager about something again. "I think a financial company's a really good fit for him right now – it's a young firm with lots of creative interests and generally younger investors. There's more energy in it, I think, and he gets to work with the people rather than the paperwork. It's only temporary, of course, but they seem ready to accommodate a school schedule for him too."

"How about his parents? They talking to him yet?" Carole had managed to wrest the whole story from Blaine during last week's Friday night dinner, and while Blaine had seemed somewhat embarrassed, Kurt knew his dad and Carole were genuinely concerned for him.

"No," Kurt admitted. He was fairly certain that Mrs. Anderson would have already contacted Blaine if not for her husband's interference, but that was cold comfort.

"Well, they're idiots, the both of them. He knows he's welcome Friday night, right?"

"Yes, he knows. We might see a movie or something afterwards. He won't have the weekend off this week either, so we thought we'd do something together on Friday instead." He caught the look on his dad's face. "What?"

Burt leaned back his chair, deliberately casual, and picked at a spot of grease on his nail. "So, you and Blaine have been goin' out a lot lately."

Kurt sighed internally. "Yes."

"A lot, Kurt."

"Yes."

"Okay, I'm just gonna say it, then. Are you two, you know, dating now?"

Shifting uncomfortably, Kurt kept his eyes trained on the computer screen. "We're not dating. We're just going out together."

"Sounds a lot like the same thing to me." Burt shrugged, turning his attention back to his papers. "Doesn't matter to me, Kurt, you know that. I was just wondering, that's all." He licked his thumb and turned a page. "You're looking happier lately."

"Good to know," Kurt said finally, more than ready to change the subject. "I'll probably start packing up tomorrow. The landlord said I could move in next Tuesday, and I'd like to get things settled before then."

Burt took the unsubtle redirection gracefully. "You tell us what you need help with, okay? Carole will be off tomorrow morning if you need someone to watch Jace while you pack."

"I actually might ask her to do that. Packing and getting to the new apartment is going to be traumatic enough for Jace. I'd like to make the transition as smooth as possible."

Burt nodded and turned another page. "We'll do what we can." He hesitated. "It's gonna be weird, not having you and the squirt around the house anymore."

A sudden welling of affection moved Kurt to get up from his chair and drape his arms over his dad's shoulders. "We're not moving to Cairo, Dad," he said reassuringly. "The apartment's less than a mile away."

"Yeah, I guess," Burt grumbled. "It's just that me and Carole got used to having you home again."

Kurt plainly heard the unspoken _I'll miss you_. "I promise that you'll still get plenty of Grandpa time, okay? And I'll come over and make dinner for you whenever you want. Plus, you're always welcome at the apartment."

Burt squeezed his arm. "You know I'm glad for you, Kurt. But if you need help . . . ."

"I know where to come," Kurt finished for him. "I know, Dad." He whisked off his father's baseball cap and swiftly planted a kiss on his head before replacing it. "Now I'd better get going; I need to pick up Jace. Do you want help closing up tonight?"

"Nah, I got it. You spend some time with the squirt. Thanks."

"It wasn't any trouble." Gathering the order ledgers together, Kurt placed them carefully in his bag. "I'll drop these off for Finn while I'm at the house – I need to ask him for his help with the move anyway. Even if he can't keep track of the garage inventory, he excels at lifting heavy boxes."

Burt snorted, looked around a bit guiltily, and then waved him on out.

The drive to Finn and Jocelyn's house from the garage only took about fifteen minutes. As Kurt pulled up in the driveway, he could see Jace at the front windows, his nose pressed flat against the glass. Kurt hopped out of the car, and Jace waved.

When he opened the door, Jace was waiting impatiently for him. "Daddy!"

"Hi, sweetie. Did you have fun with Uncle Finn?"

"It's the best day ever," Jace informed him, bouncing on his heels and stretching his arms up for a hug. Kurt scooped him up and blew a raspberry on his cheek. They were both still giggling as Finn appeared in the hallway, grinning.

"Hey, Kurt. Are the orders all taken care of?"

"Yes, no thanks to you." He reached around one-handed for his bag and took out the packet, tossing it at Finn, who caught it handily. "You can fill out the submission forms."

Finn had the grace to look a little abashed. "Sure, I can do that. Thanks, Kurt." He tucked the files under his arm and turned back into the kitchen. "I'll go get Jace's stuff for you."

Jace tugged on Kurt's sleeve to get his attention. "Daddy, play at the park now?"

"Not today, sweetie, but Daddy needs to go to the store and shop. Do you want to go to the store?"

Jace perked up, and Kurt smiled, relieved that that potential tantrum had been so easily diffused. Jace loved the grocery store – he especially liked sitting in the cart and watching the other shoppers.

Finn came back to the living room, diaper bag in hand. "If you're going to Ray's, can I go with you?" he asked. "I need to buy a vase."

"A vase? Why?"

"Um, Jace and me were playing with giant bouncy balls and we sort of broke one of Joss's," Finn mumbled. "If I can find one that looks like it, she might not notice."

"Finn, seriously . . . ."

"I already broke one of her ceramic cat thingies last week while I was dusting, and she got really mad at me," Finn said defensively. "Those cats were weird anyway. Who collects ceramic cats?"

Kurt paused. "Okay, you've got a point there."

"Can I come then? I'll be quick."

"Wait, did you clean up?" Kurt automatically grabbed one of Jace's feet, peeling down his sock and checking for scratches. "You have you get rid of every little shard-"

Finn gave him a severe look. "Hey, come on, Kurt, I'm not that dumb. He sat and watched some cartoons while I swept it up, and I even vacuumed too."

"Right, I'm sorry." Kurt sighed, straightening Jace's sock. "Sure, you can come with us, but when you get caught, if you tell your wife that I was an accomplice in this, I'll never cook for you again."

Finn's eyes widened. "I'll keep my mouth shut," he swore.

Ray's Market was unusually crowded for a Wednesday afternoon, but Finn managed to clear a path through the front door and snag a shopping cart. They split ways at the produce section as Finn went in search of a replacement vase, and Kurt picked through the bins for something leafy and green that his father might actually like.

"There's apples, Daddy," Jace informed him, pointing a finger at the fruit bins.

"Do you want some? Use your words, sweetie." Kurt added a fresh head of lettuce to the cart and started toward the apple kiosk.

"I want apples."

"Please?"

"Please want apples," Jace said dutifully.

Kurt chuckled, reaching for a plastic sack. "Close enough." He chose a few of the riper ones, having learned from trial and error that Jace's little teeth had a difficult time with crisp fruit. He added in some sour green apples for himself and moved on to the oranges.

"Which kind of oranges should we get for Grandma?" Kurt asked, holding up a navel orange and a little mesh bag of mandarins. "The little ones or the big ones?"

Jace kicked his feet against the cart flap. "The big ones." He drummed his feet harder, attracting mostly benign glances from the shoppers around them.

"Stop please," Kurt said, catching his feet before he could kick again. "Be gentle with the cart - you'll hurt your legs."

Jace gave him a half-mischievous, half-mutinous look and probably would have kicked again just to see how Kurt would react, but Finn returned just at that moment, providing a sufficient distraction.

"Found one," he crowed, depositing the slender crystal vase in the bottom of the cart, safely out of Jace's reach. "Joss'll never know the difference."

"Hmm," Kurt agreed, privately resolving to open up a betting pool with his dad and Carole - his money would be on Jocelyn discovering the misplaced vase within a day, at the very least.

They made short work of the rest of the shopping, as it was getting close to naptime, and Kurt could see that Jace was getting tired and over-stimulated. Finn loaded the groceries into the back of the Navigator while Kurt wrestled Jace into his car-seat, much to the little boy's displeasure.

His tearful fit didn't last long, though - by the time they'd arrived back at Finn's, Jace was sound asleep. Kurt pulled carefully into the driveway and cut the engine; Finn was gathering the sack by his feet, his hand on the door, but Kurt gently held him back.

"Wait a minute. Finn, do you mind helping me move into the apartment? I might need an extra set of hands."

"No prob," Finn said easily. "What time?"

"Preferably before noon, but I'll let you know as soon as I talk to the landlord again. Thanks for watching Jace today."

Finn dismissed the thanks. "I love spending time with him. He's my only nephew, you know, and I didn't see him much until you came back. It's been great." He grinned. "Joss and I will probably have all girls - she and her mom both only had sisters."

"Wait, are you two . . . ?" He trailed off as Finn's face crumpled.

"Nah. Not yet. Just saying, you know, for the future." He cleared his throat awkwardly. "I'll let you go put the little dude down for his nap. Thanks for the ride, man."

Kurt debated for a second and made an impulsive decision. "Wait. Can I ask you something?"

Finn sat back, bemused. "Sure."

"I've been thinking about something you told me back in high school, and I was wondering if you could clarify something for me."

"Okay?"

Kurt considered for a moment. "Remember how you were sort of . . . well, caught in a perpetual love triangle between Quinn and Rachel junior year?"

Finn winced a bit. "Yeah."

"You told me once that you loved both Quinn and Rachel. You said it was possible to love two people at once."

Finn looked uncomfortable. "I was a kid then, Kurt, and I say stupid stuff all the time."

"No, no, I'm not criticizing you; I'm curious. Can you explain what you meant?"

Finn reclined back in his seat, his face creased in thought. "Okay, so I loved Rachel a lot - as weird as things got, I didn't stop loving her. She helped me to do a bunch of good things, helped me figure out the kind of guy I was. I mean, I was so sure we were going to get married and be together for the rest of our lives. I owe a lot to her." He carded his fingers through his hair, visibly searching for words. "She pushed too hard, though, and I didn't push enough. I didn't want the things that she wanted, and vice visa."

"Vice versa."

"Yeah, that. It wouldn't have worked out."

"And Quinn?" Kurt prompted.

"I know everyone thought she was really mean, which she was sometimes, yeah, but she could be nice too. I mean, she got hurt a lot, and she had all kinds of bad things happen to her with her dad and Beth and stuff. She didn't like herself very much, I don't think."

"But you still loved her?"

"They always say you never stop loving your first love, right? That's kinda true, because I'd be so happy with Rachel but I'd still think about Quinn. It wasn't cool, I know, but . . . it's like you can't forget, even when you want to, because you still feel like you're responsible for their happiness, you know? And if they aren't happy, you want to make them happy, because they made _you_ happy once."

"I think you only succeeded in making both of them unhappy."

Finn grimaced. "Harsh, Kurt." A beat of silence passed, and he sighed. "I know Rachel's still mad at me, I get it, but it bugs me a lot that she won't even talk to me. I made things right with Quinn. She gives us Christmas cards every year."

"Sending Rachel a wedding invitation probably didn't help your case."

"It was supposed to be a nice gesture." Finn looked so miserable that Kurt began to regret prodding at sore spots.

"I'm sorry, Finn - never mind any of that. But you did love both of them."

"At the time. I don't love either one anymore, at least not the same way, but I did then, and it was real. It was. I'll always feel bad about Rachel, though."

Kurt glanced down at his hands, smoothing them meticulously over his jeans and hoping they didn't look as unsteady as they felt.

"But hey, why are you asking me about them? Is something bothering you?" he asked with unusual astuteness.

"Why would it be?" Kurt parried defensively.

"'Cause we never talk about this stuff unless there's something you're trying to figure out. You're like Burt like that. There's always a point to the stuff you say. You're gonna have to help me out, though. Is it about Blaine?"

Kurt blustered a bit and then deflated. "Yes."

Finn thought for a moment. "This is about you guys dating, right? Are you nervous?"

A simple nod would have to suffice; Kurt couldn't make himself admit it aloud. "We're not dating."

"Don't be nervous, man. I always liked Blaine; he's cool." Finn plucked at his sweatshirt sleeves and then blurted, "Do you still love him?"

"I've never stopped," Kurt said honestly, measuring the sound of the words out there in the open. "He's been my friend for almost ten years, and he was my first boyfriend. Of course I love him. I just don't know . . . _how_ I love him. Does that make any sense?"

"It's like me and Quinn, except without the pregnancy part and the cheating part. And both of you are dudes," Finn said sagely. "But I get it. You loved Emmett too."

Kurt's throat felt tight, thick with a swelling of unexpected emotion. "I think maybe I loved two people at once."

A quiet sort of smile tugged at Finn's mouth, and Kurt couldn't help but smile back, a rare, warm feeling of understanding hanging heavy in the air between them.

"Thank you," Kurt said.

"No problem, bro." Finn stretched his arms and opened the car door. "I'm gonna go inside and get that vase out before Joss comes home and kills me."

Kurt laughed, feeling the tension in his shoulders dissolve. "Go to it, and godspeed."

Finn climbed out of the car with his prize, ducking his head to avoid the low roof, only to pause and look over his shoulder. "Hey, Kurt?"

"Hmm?"

"In high school, Rachel and Quinn and me . . . I don't know. I don't think any of us really believed it was gonna go on forever, you know? But I always thought you and Blaine - I always thought it was different with you guys." He shrugged one shoulder, almost bashful, and shut the door, waving once before jogging up to the house.

Kurt watched him disappear inside and then huffed out a soft laugh. Trust Finn to make something so absurdly complex into something so absurdly simple.


	15. What I Have Gained Part B

_A/N: Well, we're down to the end. The epilogue should be posted by Tuesday or Wednesday. Thank you so much for all the reviews and favorites! _

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Twelve - What I Have Gained (Part B)<strong>

_Two weeks later_

* * *

><p>Regency Financial closed promptly at five-thirty, but Blaine had gotten in the habit of staying until six to arrange his tasks for the next morning. In truth, the workload was far less than he was used to at Anderson &amp; Haunheiser, but he was determined that Timothy Anderson would never hear a whisper of complaint through the grapevine about his son's ability to perform his job.<p>

Only a few of the clerks stayed past the clock, so Blaine had relative privacy while he arranged his files. Consequently, he jumped a bit as the shrill ring of his office phone disrupted the peace.

For a second, he debated whether or not to pick up the phone. Technically, the office was closed, and he really shouldn't receive any calls off the clock. On the other hand, if it was Kurt . . . but no, Kurt always called his cell phone, not his office number. Well, he could take this last call and then pack up for the night.

He lifted the phone off its base and started to stand. "Regency Financial, this is Blaine Anderson."

"Blaine?"

Blaine froze halfway out of his chair. "Mom?"

"Please don't hang up." She sounded nervous, a little winded. "I wanted to come see you right away, but your father . . . . Blaine, I am so sorry."

"Sorry? I thought you were angry at me." As resolved as he had been to handle the separation maturely, he couldn't quite keep the resentment from his voice.

"No. No, I could never be angry with you for _that_. You have the right to take another job if you want to – if it's what makes you happy. Your father just overreacted, that's all."

"You know that's not really all, Mom," Blaine said quietly.

She hesitated. "Do you like the new place?"

Blaine accepted the change of subject with only a minor pang of disappointed resignation. "I do. The hours are great and everyone seems really motivated and friendly. I'm happy here, and I'll start up courses again this fall – online, mostly, with a few correspondence classes."

There was a rustling on the other end of the phone. "I couldn't help but stop by your apartment last Friday evening," she confessed. "You weren't home, but I didn't leave a note. I should have."

_Honesty_. "I was with Kurt and his family for Friday night dinner. I go every week now."

She was quiet for a moment, and when she spoke again, her voice quivered. "I missed you. We just want you to be happy again."

His stomach clenched. "I _am_ happy."

"Blaine -"

He dug his fingers into the sides of his chair, battling for the ability to stay diplomatic. _No more of this._ "No. Please listen to me. I'm perfectly happy. The only reason you think I'm not is because you don't like _why_ I'm happy."

"That's not true."

"Yes, it is. Look, it took me a long time to figure it out, but you can be frank about this. We both already know, so there's really no point in trying to couch it in polite terms, okay?" He stopped, angry at himself and angry at her for pushing this. "I don't like that every conversation turns into a passive-aggressive confrontation, so I'd rather have this out once and for all. I know you don't like Kurt."

Her breath shuddered down the line. "That's not true. Not completely. I have nothing against him personally – he was a nice boy. But he's not good for you."

"Why?"

"Why?" she repeated, obviously flustered.

"Tell me why he's not good for me. I want to understand where you're coming from. The last time we talked about this, you said that I was too dependent on him - that he would never love me as much as I love him." He leaned forward. "Maybe it seems that way, from an outsider's point of view. But you don't know Kurt. When we were dating, you and Dad never took the time to get to know him, not really. If you had, you wouldn't think that."

"We talked," she protested.

"Yes, for five minutes. Every time he came over, you made small talk and then found some excuse to get away. You invited him to dinner once, and it was canceled by some business meeting of Dad's. You never met his parents or his friends. How could you possibly get to know him?"

"It was uncomfortable . . . ." She shut her mouth quickly, audibly.

Blaine winced. "No, go ahead. It's better to be honest. I know it made you uncomfortable. And because it made you uncomfortable, how could you possibly look at Kurt as a person – a person worth knowing? I'm on the right track, aren't I?"

She didn't answer, and that was answer enough.

"Kurt's lost a lot and he's guarded. He doesn't always show his feelings to other people, especially people he doesn't know well. Maybe you think he's cold. He's not. He has an amazing capacity for love, and I know he loves me." To his embarrassment, he could feel himself starting to tear up. "It may not be in the same way, but he loves me. And I love him – so much."

"I know you do," she burst out. "But Blaine, don't you see? Don't you see how dangerous it is to love someone you can't pull yourself away from without losing a part of yourself? He'll use that against you and control you."

"No, that's _your_ relationship." Blaine bit his lip, more than a little horrified by himself. "I'm sorry, Mom. God, I'm sorry, I didn't mean -"

"No," she whispered. "No, I understand." She inhaled shakily. "Give me a little time, Blaine, please. Just a little more time. Let me think about this."

If he'd been less patient, he might have told her that she'd had plenty of time and never used it, but he couldn't bring himself to cut off yet another parent. Kurt was right - she wasn't like Carole or Burt. But she was his mother, and at least she tried. That was more than some mothers would do. She loved him. "We have time. I think if you gave him a chance, you'd love Kurt – and Jace too. He's darling."

"You've decided already, haven't you? It's so soon," she said helplessly.

"Kurt's been home for over nine months now. That's plenty of time to know what I want."

"But Blaine, remember what happened last time."

He supposed he ought to feel insulted, but the honest bewilderment in her voice inspired pity rather than ire. She still didn't _understand_. "I remember. We're not kids anymore, and things are different for us now. But one thing is still the same: Kurt makes me happy."

She paused, and he could almost hear her struggling. "But the little boy . . . ."

"I know. I love both of them." He smiled tentatively, searching for the words that could get through to her. "I don't know what's going to happen in the future, but I finally feel like I have something to look forward to again - something to work toward. I'm starting a new job, getting my education in a career I've always wanted . . . . I'm out in the world again, Mom. And now I have Kurt and Jace and the Hummels too."

"How can you say that? He was what kept you away from the world in the first place, after that argument you had . . . "

"No," he interrupted, "Kurt didn't keep me from making progress - that was me. I used that breakup as an excuse for keeping things the way they were because I was afraid. It's okay." He gripped the phone with both hands, wishing that he could see her expression. "Please try to be happy for me, Mom."

"I don't . . ." She cut herself off with a sharp, frustrated sound. "I'm trying, Blaine. Believe me, I'm trying. I love you. I don't know what to do."

"It's okay," he repeated. "Everything's okay now." And for once, the words didn't ring so false.

* * *

><p>Taking a toddler to a garden center had been a memorable, if poorly executed, experience. Kurt mumbled a few swear words under his breath as he pulled out of the shop parking lot, glaring every so often at the box full of potted seedlings on the passenger seat. He'd found the marigolds he'd wanted for their new garden patch, but Jace's wandering fingers had ended up making him the proud owner of several shredded daffodils as well. Kurt might not have minded so much if his son had had the good taste to maim some flowers that weren't so damn ugly.<p>

What kind of florists' shop had a '_you break it, you buy it' _policy anyway?

Jace seemed very untroubled by his recent misbehavior as he napped happily in his car-seat, and Kurt's irritation decreased as it occurred to him that he could foist the daffodils on Carole, who (bless her heart) had about as much knowledge of flowers as her husband - and Burt didn't know the difference between a peony and a pansy.

The garden patches were a definite plus for the new apartment; Kurt's new landlord, Mr. Bucklin, had to be at least ninety-five and apparently missed the memo that Victory Gardens had run out of style about eighty years ago. Still, the little plots were picturesque, and Kurt liked having fresh flowers around anyway.

Taking a left turn onto their street, Kurt ran through his mental to-do list. _Plant the marigolds, get those daffodils out of my sight, make dinner, give Jace a bath, call Blaine. Get up early tomorrow and finish that inseam. Blaine is babysitting from one to three, so clean the house a little. Call Marcella's office to reschedule my appointment . . . ._

_My appointment. _

Kurt chewed on his lip as he maneuvered into his parking spot, mulling over the words. Simple words, but significant ones. Tomorrow would be his last regular appointment with Dr. Bhattacharya - she'd only ask him to come in every month for a checkup from now on, unless he felt like he needed an extra session here or there during a rough patch.

It was a bigger adjustment than he'd expected. Kurt had grown used to her and their weekly sessions, and it was a little intimidating to think that he wouldn't have that outlet anymore. Of course, he knew it wasn't healthy to start developing the habit of using a therapist as a crutch either, but he wasn't as confident as Dr. Bhattacharya seemed to be about his progress.

_I won't always be here when you need to talk_, she'd told him when he protested. _It's time to start telling these things to other people - your friends, your family, your loved ones. Be honest with them, be open with them. __**Trust**__ them, Kurt. They love you, and they want to listen to you._

It was a daunting task. He was accustomed to keeping his problems private and solving them himself, but she was so sure he could do it - everyone was so sure. Everyone except him, it seemed.

"Hi, Daddy."

Kurt glanced into the rearview mirror to see Jace looking at him with bleary, heavy-lidded eyes. "Hi, sweetie. Did you have a good nap?"

Jace offered him a drowsy smile before he slipped two fingers in his mouth and turned to look out the window. "I'm home," he informed Kurt.

"Yes, we're home." His phone beeped, and he tugged it out of his jacket, finding a text from Blaine.

_**howd peanut like the flowers?**_

_**He destroyed $20 worth of daffodils, **_Kurt typed._** Aren't you supposed to be working right now?**_

_**boring client. im texting under the desk.**_

_**What a rebel. **_

_**yup. see you tomorrow? xoxo**_

_**See you then. **_Kurt paused, feeling slightly ridiculous, and then added _**xoxo **_and pressed _send. _

"He texts like a preteen girl," he observed aloud, "and god help me, it's contagious." Pocketing his phone, he twisted impulsively in his seat, leaning over the divide to get his son's full attention. "Jace, should Daddy ask Blaine on a date?"

Jace continued to placidly suck on his fingers, only mildly interested.

Kurt sighed, leaning against the back of the seat. "Daddy doesn't know quite what to do." Opening the car door, he went to the back and began unbuckling the car-seat. "Come on, sweetie. Let's go plant these flowers."

It took a little bit of effort to juggle the flower box, the diaper bag, and Jace, but Kurt managed it somehow. Their garden plot had already been tilled and treated, and after a quick change of clothes and a dash of sunscreen, the Hummels got to work. Or rather, Kurt got to work; Jace immediately took off his shoes and began industriously packing them with soil.

Kurt let his fingers sink into the cool topsoil, enjoying the sensation. As much as he normally disliked dirt, there was something very pleasant about gardening. His mother had loved it. "You can't wear your shoes if they're filled with dirt, silly."

Jace paused and studied his tiny sneakers critically before shoving another handful of grass into them. Kurt sighed and let it go. The shoes could be cleaned out later, and at least he wasn't pulling up the flowers.

"Aren't these marigolds pretty, Jace? We'll put them in the ground and then they'll grow up big and tall. Flowers love the dirt as much as you do."

Jace watched him slowly remove the carton and settle the plant in its trench. "I can help," he said, dropping his shoes and crouching next to Kurt.

"Yes, you can, but we have to be very gentle with the flowers. We don't want them to get hurt." Kurt guided his hands, showing him how to pat down the soil around the stem. "See?"

"It's _yellow_." Jace smiled at the little flower proudly. "Daddy, that one next."

Kurt followed his pointing finger and sighed when he saw the daffodils. "Those are for Grandma, sweetie. Let's put the other marigolds in."

Jace gave him such a pitiful, puppy-eyed look that Kurt felt his resolve crumble entirely. "Oh, fine, one daffodil."

His reward was a blinding grin, and Jace brought the daffodil over carefully, cupping it in both hands. "You are so spoiled," Kurt told him without any real heat, smiling a little as Jace clumsily smoothed the soil over the stem.

They worked on the flowers together until Jace grew bored and turned back to his shoes, keeping close to Kurt's side. A light breeze billowed up, stirring the flowers' petals and curling the leaves. The grass tickled his hands, the sun was warm, and Kurt sat back on his heels for a moment, closing his eyes.

It was beautiful. That was the only word he could think of to describe the day, the feeling. It was just . . . beautiful.

"Daddy?"

Kurt opened his eyes.

"It's a balloon," Jace said soberly, lifting his shoe as high as he could.

"Is it? That's a funny looking balloon." Kurt reached out and caressed his disheveled hair - Jace leaned instinctively into the familiar touch, and Kurt just smoothed his hair for a minute, studying the way the light shaded the cornsilk-blond waves into pale gold.

And slowly, the pieces began to slot together. Maybe they would always be a little mismatched, a little worn around the edges, but for now, he had this day. He had Jace. He had Blaine.

Would it be so wrong for life to be beautiful again?

"He would have wanted us to be happy," Kurt said, watching Emmett's son dump the dirt from his shoes with great concentration. "I know he would have. Jace?"

Jace looked up at him, smiling, expectant.

"You like Blaine, don't you, sweetie?"

"Ice cream!"

Kurt laughed out loud. Clearly the memory of their day out with Blaine last Tuesday had stuck in Jace's mind – or at least, the visit to the ice cream parlor afterwards had. "Not now. Blaine's babysitting you tomorrow, not today. But Daddy bought some nice, healthy frozen yogurt at the store, remember? You can have some after lunch."

"You can have yogblurt now?"

Kurt patted the dirt. "After we finish here."

That satisfied him, and he cheerfully returned to the vital task of refilling his shoes with dirt.

* * *

><p>Even as he fished his key out of his pocket, Kurt could hear laughter from inside the apartment; Jace's high-pitched giggles made a nice counterpart to Blaine's lower tones. Smiling to himself, he unlocked the door, bracing himself for a leg tackle as soon as he heard Jace's feet pounding toward him.<p>

"Hi, Daddy, come and play!" Jace squealed, his arms tight around Kurt's knees. "Blaine the pirate!"

"Blaine's a pirate?" Kurt immediately covered one eye with his hand. "Are we pirates too?"

Jace copied his movement, puffing out his chest. "Arrrrrgh!"

"Aye, aye," Blaine echoed, coming around the corner with his finger crooked like a hook. "First Mate Yellowbeard, ye've caught the nefarious Captain Kurt!"

"So this is what happens when I leave the ship for more than an hour - mutiny! Is Blaine a bad pirate?" Kurt asked.

"Aye, and I'll have yer booty!" Blaine stopped, his ears turning pink.

"Nice to know that your pickup lines haven't improved at all," Kurt observed, doing his best not to laugh in Blaine's face. "Now, get yourselves to the galley so I can serve you some slop and a dram." He put down his bag and slid his coat off, folding it over a chair. "How did he do for you today?"

"Great! We played with the finger puppets and read a few books, and then we played with the train set, and somehow an attempted train heist turned into pirates. Really, I have no idea. He had a diaper change and some water about half an hour ago, and he only wanted half of his snack, so he's probably pretty hungry."

"I thought I'd make fish sticks tonight anyway, so it shouldn't take long. You'll stay and eat with us, won't you?"

"Of course. Kurt, you've had a long day. You go sit with Jace, and I'll make supper. I think I can manage fish sticks. No, I insist. I had the day off, but you've been on your feet for hours."

"Blaine, really."

"Come on." Blaine hip-checked him gently. "Let me take care of you once in a while, huh?"

And so Kurt did. He sat on the carpet and did a simple puzzle with Jace, listening to the sounds of Blaine bumping around his kitchen.

Blaine, in his ongoing quest to prove that he couldn't really cook anything but delicious Italian food, burned the fish sticks and baked yams. Kurt brushed it aside, simply scraping the charred bits with a knife. He set the table quickly and settled Jace in the high chair as Blaine started to plate their food. "Just a minute," he said. "I'll be right back. I need to grab something."

Clicking on the bedroom light, Kurt opened his closet door and slipped the vase off the shelf. A dozen red and yellow roses brimmed over the top of the milk-glass vase, and Kurt took a fortifying breath. Dr. Bhattacharya's parting advice echoed in his mind. _Do what you feel ready for. Don't rush yourself, but don't be afraid of going ahead with your life either._

Hiding the flowers behind his back, Kurt returned to the kitchen. Blaine was pouring apple juice into Jace's sippy cup, but he looked up questioningly when Kurt didn't sit down.

"These are for you." Kurt held the flowers out to him, hoping that Blaine wouldn't see how they were trembling a little.

It took a moment for Blaine to reach out and accept them. "I . . . they're lovely, Kurt. Thank you. What's the occasion?" He bent his head to sniff them.

"Flowers are customary on a first date, aren't they?"

Blaine's eyes widened.

"I know it's not much of a date," Kurt said, suddenly twice as nervous. What had he been thinking, springing this on him? "But I'd like it to be. If _you _want it to be, that is."

"Kurt," Blaine said, a little helplessly. He stared at the flowers and then back up at Kurt's face.

"Only if you want to, Blaine. I understand if you're not ready. I know I am, but I do understand."

"Pretty flowers," Jace said, drumming his heels against his booster seat.

The sound seemed to shake both of them out of their daze. Kurt sat down, and Blaine's hand darted forward, clinging almost painfully tight to his. They were both quiet for a moment.

"A dozen roses for a first date," Blaine said at last, a grin starting to unfurl across his face. "That's ambitious."

Kurt beamed back at him, relief flooding through his stomach, and he squeezed Blaine's fingers. "I can afford to be ambitious with you."'

Blaine didn't let go of his hand all the way through dinner, and Kurt smiled to himself every time Blaine's eyes lit wonderingly on the roses. They talked, and Jace chattered and spilled his juice all over his tray, and the fish sticks were still burnt, but maybe it was okay that it wasn't perfect. Maybe, Kurt thought, the three of them could make their own little imperfect patchwork family - maybe, without he or Blaine realizing it, they already had.

He didn't need something perfect, not when he had something beautiful.


	16. Epilogue

_A/N: Well, here we are! I've had lots of fun writing this story, and thank you so much to all of you who waded through sporadic updates - I so appreciate your comments and your encouragement._

* * *

><p><strong>Epilogue<strong>

_Chicago, August 2027_

_Six years later_

* * *

><p>Blaine took a settling breath, fingers tapping lightly on the steering wheel as he waited patiently. It was hard to sit still, as tired as he was, when their new home was sitting just a few feet from the driveway. He studied the front lawn and the side of the building that he could see from the van for about the fiftieth time since they'd pulled in. Nothing had changed from one minute to the next; the house was still neat and compact, two levels with an attached garage, a wide bay window in the front, and a front garden complete with hedges and a somewhat incongruous koi pond.<p>

He glanced in the rearview mirror; Jace was sprawled his seat, his complete attention centered on whatever video game he was trying to beat on his handheld console. Blaine didn't think he'd looked up from the console for the last four hours, but that was par the course. Kurt said that their son had started in on his carefully-cultivated teenage indifference stage a few years early, and Blaine was inclined to agree.

Shifting his gaze over to the next seat, all he could see was a tangle of curly red hair; he looked over his shoulder instead and met his daughter's bright hazel eyes. Ruby beamed at him, bouncing her skinny, band-aid-peppered legs in time to some melody only she could hear.

"You guys okay back there?" Blaine said, more to fill the time than anything else. Kurt was taking a little longer than they'd expected with the realtor, and Blaine was more than ready to get out of this car after their six hour drive.

Jace made some kind of vaguely affirmative sound.

"I'm hungry," Ruby announced. "Is Daddy making supper?"

"Not right now, pumpkin. Just a little bit longer." Blaine took off his sunglasses absently, propping them on top of his head. "After Daddy gets back, we can go inside and get supper, and then you can help decorate your room and unpack."

"She can't really help," Jace said, his fingers flying over the pad of his game console. "She's just a little kid."

Ruby's face screwed up angrily. "I _can_, dummy," she retorted. "I'm not a little kid."

"You're the dummy, dummy. And you're only five."

"Jace, stop provoking your sister," Blaine cut in before the bickering could escalate. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Ruby's tiny fingers creeping toward her brother's arm. "Ruby, what did we tell you about pinching? Don't even think about it."

She withdrew her hand sulkily.

Fortunately, Kurt came out a moment or two later with the realtor; they shook hands and split ways: she to her car and Kurt to them.

Blaine smiled at him, leaning out the open window with an eager beat of anticipation pounding in his chest. "Well?" There was no reason to ask, really - everything had been settled months ago. But still . . . . It was their first house together, their first real house.

Kurt swung the key ring around his finger and grinned. "It's all ours."

* * *

><p>The majority of their things had been shipped in a week earlier, and the house was covered in boxes and sheet-draped furniture. The four of them toured the house again; Blaine held Kurt's hand as they watched the kids explore.<p>

"It's pretty big," Jace said. "Since we have a yard now, maybe we can have a dog."

"We'll see," Blaine hedged.

Kurt just smiled and said, "Your hair is a mess." He reached for the short, gelled blond spikes on Jace's head. Jace grumbled, but he let Kurt fix his hair - Kurt was really the only one who could get away with it.

"It's getting late," Kurt remarked as they trooped back down the stairs to the main floor. "I think we have enough supplies to make something for tonight, but we won't have time to unpack everything." He shrugged off his smart gray jacket and laid it over the covered sofa. "How do sandwiches sound?"

Jace perked up at the mention of food, following Kurt into the kitchen to speed the process along. Blaine chuckled and started to follow, only to notice that Ruby was hanging back, frowning down at her sneakers.

Blaine crouched down and tipped her chin gently. "What's wrong, pumpkin?"

"I don't like it here," she admitted after a moment, looking up to gauge Blaine's reaction.

"Well, it's a brand new house in a new place. We'll all have to get used to it, but I think you'll like it here soon. You'll meet lots of friends at school."

"But Mindy and Marina aren't here, Papa, and now I'm the only girl."

Blaine hid his smile at her petulant tone, but he understood how much she would miss her little cousins. Finn and Jocelyn's twins were sweet girls who idolized Ruby, and the loss of her favorite playmates wouldn't be easy. But Ruby was a boisterous, outgoing kid, and Blaine was sure that she wouldn't want for any friends at school. Still, it would be an adjustment for all of them.

Maybe Chicago wasn't New York, but it wasn't Lima either, and both he and Kurt had fallen in love with the neighborhood. This was the chance they'd been waiting for - a teaching position had opened up at a local elementary school, and Kurt's freelance work allowed him to go anywhere, so they'd leapt at the chance. It was a good, solid first step, and Blaine could see them being happy here, as hard as it had been to leave everyone in Lima behind again.

"It's okay to be a little sad at first; I am too," he told her. "But we'll do this together, and it'll be okay."

She gave him a slightly dubious look - he and Kurt couldn't pull anything on this one - but apparently decided that he was being sincere. Her frown eased a little, and she let him take her hand and lead her to the kitchen.

Kurt glanced at them as they came in from the breakfast bar, his quick eyes taking in Ruby's expression and her tight grip on Blaine's fingers, and his face softened with sudden understanding.

"Food's ready - we've got to wash up first," Kurt reminded them. Since Ruby's step stool was in some box somewhere, Kurt held her up while she washed her hands. When she was done, he swooped her up, making her squeal, and gave her a tight hug; Blaine ushered Jace into the dining room, but he could hear Kurt whispering reassuringly to her, and when they came out, Ruby looked like her cheerful self again.

Tired as they were after so many weeks of constant work and motion, all four them were ready to go to bed by eight. Mattresses and sheets were unearthed; beds were made, pajamas were unpacked, and Blaine plugged in Ruby's nightlight as Kurt tucked her into bed with her plethora of stuffed animals for company; Jace lingered in the doorway, brushing his teeth and pretending not to listen to the bedtime story Blaine was reading.

"We'll just be down the hall," Kurt told her when the book was done, smoothing the sheets over her shoulders. "You can come get us or call for us if you're scared, okay? I know it's a new place, but we're right here."

"I'm not scared," Jace proclaimed with all the bravado of a nine-year-old who considered himself absolutely grown up.

His sister looked more hesitant. "I don't like monsters."

Jace rolled his eyes. "There aren't any monsters, Ruby. I'm right next door anyway, and I know karate, remember? If there were monsters, I'd chop them all up."

Ruby's pinched look faded a little. "You promise?"

"Promise."

Once both kids were safely ensconced in their rooms, Blaine and Kurt finally made it to their own bedroom - it looked oddly bare despite being filled with boxes, but the bed was made, and Blaine gladly flopped down face-first on the mattress. "Oof."

"Tired?" Kurt asked, sounding amused.

"Exhausted. Who knew moving with kids would be so complicated?" He rubbed his eyes and let his body sink into the bed. "I think I was seriously considering just throwing the two of them into boxes."

Kurt laughed.

* * *

><p>A hot shower washed away the worst of Blaine's aches and pains, but he was still ridiculously eager to crawl into bed. The heating hadn't quite kicked completely in yet, so he grabbed warm pajamas from the drawer and was just buttoning his shirt when Kurt reappeared in the bedroom.<p>

"The kids are settled in," he said as he shut the door. "I think they'll be fine tonight - it was a long day for all of us, and they're tired too. I called Dad to let him know we got in okay."

"That's good," Blaine said absently, rooting around in his bath kit for his toothbrush. "How's everyone?"

"Fine. Carole wanted to know where we're having Christmas this year." Kurt slipped off his robe, folding it carefully onto the bedside table.

"What do you think about hosting it here?"

"My parents, Finn, Joss, and the twins, Rod and Sheila, _and_ your mother all at once? It's dangerous, Blaine."

"That's the fun part, don't you think? Everyone can fit, now that we've got a bigger place."

"The kids will be spoiled rotten," Kurt reminded him. "Five grandparents under one roof."

"They're good kids, and they're spoiled already anyway."

Kurt snorted as he turned down the sheets. "You're determined to keep me optimistic, aren't you?"

"It's my job." Blaine ducked back into the bathroom to brush his teeth.

"We'll have to get everything set up tomorrow," Kurt was saying as Blaine came back in, his voice a little muffled as he pulled his shirt over his head. "We need to register with the kids' new school for the fall and find a pediatrician." He folded his shirt carefully and reached for his pajamas. "You're going to have to take Jace to that new karate studio for his lessons this week, because I'll be working late on Thursday." He crawled into bed, and Blaine immediately rolled on top of him.

He hugged Kurt for a moment. "We have a house," he said happily.

Kurt's fingers skated along his arms. "We do."

Kurt was warm and smooth underneath him, and something hot and pleasant tugged in Blaine's stomach, sending a frisson of interest through his exhausted body. "Do you think the kids are asleep yet?" he murmured, nuzzling his face into Kurt's throat.

Kurt's smile was conspiratorial, and he propped himself up on his elbows, listening for a moment. "I don't hear anything," he said, "but the walls are thicker here. They looked like they were out when I checked."

"Lock the door and come here," Blaine commanded. "I haven't seen you all day."

"We've been sitting in the same car for six hours, Blaine."

"You know what I mean." He watched Kurt slip away, nearly invisible in the dark - the lock clicked softly, something rustled, and then Kurt was back in his arms.

"You're naked," Blaine observed wisely, smoothing his hands up and down Kurt's back.

"Mmm. However could you tell?"

A witty rejoinder was on the tip of Blaine's tongue, but then _Kurt's_ tongue was dragging ever so slowly along Blaine's collarbone, and he decided he didn't care if he had the last word or not.

Kurt's nimble fingers hooked into his shirt, sliding buttons aside and parting the cloth. Cool air prickled against his chest, raising gooseflesh, and he urged Kurt onto his side so that they lay face-to-face, letting his lips wander teasingly across Kurt's face before claiming his mouth again.

Who knew how long they lay there kissing - Blaine certainly didn't care to find out, absorbed as he was by the wet, silky press of Kurt's very adept tongue. They had all night, after all, and a fairly decent chance of not being interrupted for once.

One kiss bled into another, and Blaine let himself sink into it, lapping eagerly at Kurt's lower lip, curiously venturing inside as Kurt's hands began to card through his hair. The kiss deepened, and the heat in Blaine's belly sparked, sending little shocks down to his toes; Kurt was plastered up against him, his hips beginning to sway.

"I love kissing you," Blaine whispered.

He could see Kurt roll his eyes, though a smile flirted at the edges of his mouth. "Stop talking."

He kissed Kurt's neck as Kurt finished undressing him, finding a particularly sensitive spot and sucking until he left a decent mark. His hands skimmed all over the exposed flesh, along his ribs and down his sides and even around his arms; Kurt bucked up into Blaine's hips unashamedly now, his breathing labored.

Eventually, Blaine migrated down the smooth stomach, and he mouthed the impressive outline tenting Kurt's briefs before he slipped his fingers under the elastic and slipped them off. Kurt hummed happily, letting his fingers curl loosely into Blaine's hair.

"What do you want to do?" Blaine asked, tossing the briefs off the bed. "I'm fine with anything."

"Blowjobs, probably, since you were heading there anyway. I'm too tired for anything else."

Blaine snorted like a thirteen year old at 'heading' and kissed Kurt's stomach, breathing in the smell of their favorite body wash and letting himself feel the way Kurt's muscles shifted and twitched under his skin.

Kurt was flushed and hard, his cock already slick, and he tensed as Blaine mouthed at him briefly before taking him down - his head tipped back onto the pillow, his legs parting to give Blaine room to move.

Closing his eyes, Blaine sucked lazily, smoothing his hands up and down Kurt's hipbones, feeling his stomach contract and release, the warm skin sliding, slithering against his palms. Kurt was sighing, moaning so softly that Blaine could hardly hear him, his fingers raking gently across Blaine's scalp.

The room was quiet except for Kurt's quiet groans and the somewhat obscene noises coming from Blaine's mouth. Blaine had a special fondness for nights like these when everything was still and slow and calm, and he could lose himself counting Kurt's breaths and memorizing the curve and dip of the small of his back and studying the tiny shadows that his eyelashes cast in the corners of his eyes.

Tired as they both were, it didn't take long. Kurt's hips stuttered and then jerked once, his heels digging into the mattress, and Blaine braced his knees and watched greedily.

He loved this part of sex, the way that Kurt somehow managed to make his body lax and tense all at once, the way his eyelids fluttered and his mouth trembled in a tight little 'oh' as he came. He let go of Kurt as soon as he'd swallowed - Kurt was always terribly sensitive afterwards. Inching up the mattress, he held him instead, letting Kurt clutch his shoulders as he came down.

"Mmm," Kurt murmured, his body going limp and boneless with satisfaction.

Blaine kissed his cheek. "Good?"

"Wonderful," Kurt practically purred, kneading his hands up and down Blaine's back. Blaine enjoyed the affectionate touches, but he couldn't quite stop himself from rubbing up on Kurt's thigh - a backrub was all fine and good, but other parts of his body wanted attention too.

"So impatient," Kurt sighed tolerantly.

"Hey, come on, be nice to me. Remember whose dick was in my mouth a few minutes ago."

"That's a sentence I'd love to never hear again."

Blaine laughed, at least until Kurt swooped down and took him in with one fluid movement, and then Blaine didn't have the concentration to think, let alone laugh.

"Oh god," he breathed, his hips rolling up instinctively into the wet heat, and Kurt moved with him. His thoughts were in absolute shambles, so he gave up and just let himself feel, willingly helpless to whatever Kurt wanted to do with him.

Blaine sank back into the pillows and sighed; Kurt's arm was solid and reassuring around his waist, and once his mind started to emerge from the post-orgasm haze, he turned around and wrapped his limbs around Kurt.

"I love you," he sighed, burrowing his nose into Kurt's neck and savoring the comfortable scents of sex and Kurt and _home_.

"I love you too," Kurt said sleepily. "I should get a washcloth for us before we stain the new sheets."

"I'd rather stay here." Blaine squeezed him for emphasis.

Kurt was silent for a moment, and Blaine could feel him smiling against his shoulder. "So would I."


End file.
